Miriam turns 90!

Longtime resident of Center Moriches, Miriam Gillies, turned 90 on March 23.

“She is one of a kind! She is a great lady and very good to the community,” said friend and co-chamber member Gerry Sapanaro.  “Always a person who is there—you could go on and on about her.”

Gillies is a charter member of the Passport Rotary Club. She’s participated in educating people about organ donation, food drives, and delivering food and basic necessities to the working homeless that live in Suffolk County.

She is also known for bringing the Relay for Life to Center Moriches, which raised thousands of dollars in order to help cancer research. She also spent tireless hours for many years organizing, planning, and reaching out to survivors.

Gillies has also been a member of the Moriches Chamber of Commerce for many years as an integral participant in almost every event.

She started her community volunteerism during the annual Blessing of the Fleet in the late ‘70s and started the first Offshore Women’s Fishing Tournament. She also participated in Camp Paquatuck’s Bike-A-Thon for years and the chamber’s annual Duck Race. She is also known for taking cancer patients back and forth to treatment.

During the years, she has also volunteered for the Moriches Bay Unit of ACS and participated in Daffodil Days, Jail and Bail, Help Soccer Kick Cancer, and the Amazing Kite Fly.

But the most rewarding event, she said, is the Relay for Life and being an active volunteer at East End Hospice.

Additionally, she has been on different programs/committees at the local school, a judge for the fire department’s holiday parade, and presently, she is on the Board of Directors of the Chamber of Commerce of the Moriches, Moriches Community Center, and Our Lady Queen of the Apostles. She is also a parishioner at St John’s R.C. Church.

Several years ago, she also restarted the chamber’s Halloween window painting, and chaired the Student of the Month, menorah and tree lighting, and the Veterans Day parade. The chamber also honored her as the first female grand marshal for the annual St. Patrick’s Day parade in 2011.

Gillies moved to Center Moriches in 1965, purchasing an abandoned duck farm and turning it into a marina. She and her husband had one daughter and one son. She was a registered nurse-turned-nursing teacher and her husband was an electrician. Her husband died in 2000.