Our Community, in the Community

Sunbeam has often stated that its volunteers, board members and staff are some of the best there is. This year, we are thrilled to know that the community as a whole has recognized the fantastic community contributions made by one of our long term board members – Cheryl Hugill.  Cheryl has been awarded the Women of Distinction Lifetime Achievement Award by the Cambridge YWCA, and we are so proud of her.
Cheryl was nominated by some of the women on her team at BDO in Cambridge, where she has acted as a role model and mentor to many in her career.  She is a huge proponent of treating your job as more than just a paycheck – she is intent on modeling and empowering her staff to use their breadth of skills to benefit the community, not just settling for using their good number sense or organizational skills to meet their basic job requirements. 
Cheryl was introduced to Sunbeam Centre when sitting on a community committee that was considering Sunbeam Centre as a grant recipient. In that role, Cheryl had the opportunity to take a facility tour and immediately fell in love with the work that Sunbeam was doing. She was later approached to join the board and Finance Committee, where she has served in various roles, including president. Cheryl notes that seeing first hand the work being done on the main campus is impressive enough, but being on the board gives a whole new perspective of the depth of the need which Sunbeam addresses. 
“Under Cheryl’s leadership, our agency saw an increased emphasis on service quality, organizational refinement and growth across all areas of the organization. As president, Cheryl demonstrated exceptional leadership, dedication and enthusiasm. Sunbeam is very fortunate to have Cheryl on the Board and those who have served alongside her have benefitted greatly from her mentorship.” – Bob Butella, Executive Director, Sunbeam Centre