Chamber names Cheryl Holloway Volunteer of the Year

Photo caption: Volunteer of the Year Cheryl Holloway quietly devotes several hours each week to hauling cases of groceries and packaging healthy weekend meals for needy elementary children in Tide Me Over, a program she and fellow teacher Jean Buurma founded nine years ago. Photo credit: Judy Williams

by Patrice Johnson

In keeping with tradition, the Stockbridge Area Chamber of Commerce announced its Volunteer of the Year award during the annual Day in the Village, and this year a retired Stockbridge teacher was named recipient. Cheryl Holloway’s unwavering commitment to Outreach’s Tide Me Over program ranked high among her many kind and generous acts.

“I would like to thank all the businesses in Stockbridge for their gifts,” the soft-spoken and unassuming Holloway said. “I enjoy doing Tide Me Over and helping all the kids get food they need to succeed in life.”

For the past nine years, Holloway has quietly devoted several hours each school week to ordering, hauling cases of groceries and packaging healthy weekend meals for needy elementary children in the community. Together with fellow teacher Jean Buurma, Holloway founded the Stockbridge Tide Me Over program.

“Jean was on the Outreach Board” Holloway recalled, “when she saw a TV news broadcast about an inner city program that sent food home with children to tide them over the weekend.” No similar program existed for “little towns like us,” Holloway said. “There was such a need for the kids that we thought, ‘hey, let’s try that.’”