Sherri Reilly named 2023 Bay Village Citizen of the Year

Sherri Reilly was named the 2023 Bay Village Citizen of the Year for her work at the Community Garden on behalf of the Village Project.
If you or a loved one have ever experienced a serious illness requiring doctor visits, hospital stays, poking and prodding, fear and uncertainty, pain and fatigue, you know that there can be many dark days. Sometimes the thing you need most is the kindness of others, a small act that turns a stranger into a friend.
To those facing cancer, Sherri Reilly has been a friend. For the past 12 years, Sherri has turned her compassion into a nearly full-time volunteer endeavor as the Village Project’s garden leader. During the growing season, Sherri would spend up to 30 hours a week at the Bay Village Community Garden, tending vegetables, growing herbs and snipping flowers.
The vegetables and herbs go to the Village Project kitchen, where volunteers prepare nutritious meals for clients battling cancer. The flowers provide nourishment for the soul, as Sherri and her team would bundle the blooms into colorful bouquets and place them in hand-painted vases to brighten clients’ dark days. During the winter, Sherri partnered with the nonprofit BigHearted Blooms to use “recycled” flowers leftover from weddings and other events.