PICTURED FROM THE LEFT: Jack Warchol, Barbara Worley, Andrea Ahearne, Dave Sidebottom, Cheryl Dalton, Brian Fox, Laurel Sullivan and Kevin Scheeler.
WAKEFIELD — The Wakefield Independence Day Committee (WIDC) announces that Cheryl Dalton is the grand marshal for the 77th Wakefield 4th of July Parade!
Cheryl has been a longtime volunteer in Wakefield and has left her mark on the Girl Scouts, the WIDC and the Wakefield Elks over the years. She exemplifies the volunteer spirit and the organizations she has been involved with are better because of her.
Cheryl was born and raised and in Wakefield and has been a lifelong resident. Her favorite thing about the town is that there is always something happening here for families to enjoy. Her father, William (Bill), was retired from the Post Office after a long career where he delivered mail along every route in Wakefield and her mother, Phyllis, was a stay-at-home mom until Cheryl and her brothers William Jr. and Timothy could take care of themselves after school. She then worked at the Cubby Hole, the high school cafeteria, and retired from American Mutual.
Cheryl doesn’t have any children but has two nieces, two nephews, two great-nieces and two great-nephews.
Her parents inspired a love of volunteering in her with her father helping with the Elks. Meanwhile, her mother was active with the St. Joseph’s Mothers Club, was a corps mom with St. Joseph’s Sombreros Drill Team and served as a cookie mom when Cheryl was a Junior Girl Scout. Cheryl’s long history of volunteering started when she was 15 years old and volunteered to help a Brownie troop at the Doyle School. When she was 17, she was asked to be an assistant leader of another group of 4th graders and as she put it, “It snowballed from there!” She has been involved with the Girl Scouts as both a child and an adult for over 50 years and is a Life member. She’s led troops from Brownies to Ambassadors, helped with and organized the annual cookie sale, served as the Co-Coordinator of the Wakefield Service Unit before taking over the coordinator role, and ran encampments and overnights for the girl scout troops. Before the cookie sale went computerized, she was an area coordinator for the sale, processing cookie orders for 2,000 girls from seven communities around Wakefield. She also represented Wakefield as a delegate at the Girl Scout National Convention a few times.
She’s also been a member of the Wakefield Elks for 18 years and during that time helped organize the Common Ground Outing for Children for approximately 15 years, ran the craft corner at the Elks annual Kid’s Christmas Party for about 10 years, worked on and organized the Senior Citizen’s Picnic, and served as a server at the annual Teen-Ager of the Month Dinner. Most recently, she co-chaired the Bingo Committee for a few years.
She also volunteered at Midsummer Night when they needed extra hands but was not on the organizing committee. She said meeting musicians Livingston Taylor and John Sebastian was especially memorable.
Cheryl spent many years with the WIDC as a board member, helping with floats, helping with fundraising, and so much more. She said, “volunteering with the Parade Committee was a highlight! The amount of effort and energy that goes into producing the parade each year is phenomenal and I feel privileged to have been involved with that.”
Here are some of her favorite Wakefield 4th of July Parade memories:
“As kids, we lived on Albion Street, right across from the Moulton Playground where the parade used to form. The floats would line up right in front of our house, we’d watch as the finishing touches were added to the floats. I loved marching in the parade, too! First with St. Joseph’s Sombreros and through my high school years with St. Patrick’s Shamrocks from Stoneham. Building floats for the Girl Scouts was great! Staying up all night on July 3rd just to make sure every paper flower was wired to the frame and every detail was taken care of! Taking part in the children’s events run by the WSSC was always exciting. My mom would work on my doll carriage for weeks getting everything just right. Then when I got older, decorating carts with my brothers was always fun. Including the year, we decapitated the picket fence in the backyard in order to make chairs for the dolls decorating the cart to sit in! Dad was not pleased but he was ok with it!”
When we asked Cheryl if she would like to add anything to this piece she said, “Just that there was a time when Dad asked me ‘What was I trying to do, become a doyenne in town?’ after I told him I was volunteering for yet another event? I replied, no, I just want to make sure that the kids in town have as much fun as I had growing up.”
“I’m so honored and humbled to be the Grand Marshall of the 2024 parade. It’s a great tradition here in Wakefield and one that I hope will last for many years to come.”
Please congratulate Cheryl when you see her!
