SAUGUS — Members of the School Committee are advocating for former chair Wendy Reed to be named Saugus Woman of the Year.
Committee members Arthur Grabowski and Dennis Gould said Reed, who died Feb. 5 at age 57, should be recognized for the years she dedicated to the betterment of the Saugus community.
“Nobody will ever know the number of people and families she positively affected on a regular basis,” said Grabowski, who spent six years serving on the board alongside Reed. “Everything she did was behind the scenes. She never put herself out there. That was the type of person she was.”
Described by many as an exceptionally giving person, Reed, who was president of the Saugus Food Pantry at the time of her death, worked as the town’s Board of Selectmen clerk since the 1990s and was actively involved in Saugus education, serving as a member of various Parent Teacher Associations, as a volunteer noon aid, and as officer at the Evans Elementary and Belmonte Middle School.
She first ran for School Committee in 1997 and served on the board until 2001, choosing to take time off for family obligations before returning once again to the role in November 2005.
Gould told The Item earlier this month that Reed’s enthusiasm for helping others and her natural leadership abilities were evident to all who knew her.
“Wendy was a kind and giving person,” he said. “She always gave herself willingly, and not for awards or recognition, but to truly assist others.”
He added that the full extent of Reed’s community service wasn’t widely known, recalling the work Reed did alongside Pastor Martha Leahy of First Congregational United Church of Christ to combat homelessness in Saugus, as well as her involvement with nonprofit organization HAWC (Healing Abuse Working for a Change).
During a School Committee meeting Feb. 11, the board held a moment of silence for Reed and shared stories remembering some of the ways in which she served her community.
Vice chair Ryan Fisher recalled a time Reed was able to remember detailed information he needed regarding a 25-year-old Board of Selectmen vote off the top of her head.
“She was the person who had that institutional memory,” he said. “You wonder for the community going forward, who are we going to go to when we need information no one else seems to have.”
The town’s Person of the Year recipients are chosen by a committee of past winners and will be announced on Founders Day in September, Grabowski said.
Fisher recalled Reed had previously declined the recognition “several times.”
“Nobody deserves it more than Wendy,” Grabowski said. “I think it would be a tribute to her family and the community at large to recognize what she did.”
