Sherie Fabrizio, anti-drinking leader

Sherie A. Fabrizio of Sunrise, Fla., a former Ridgefielder who had been active in programs that fought teenage drinking here, died on Monday, July 18, 2005, in Sunrise. She was 51 years old.

Ms. Fabrizio, who had lived in Ridgefield from 1991 until 2003, had served as president of Ridgefield’s Alcohol & Drug Awareness Committee in the 1990s.

She was also an adviser to the Students Against Drunk Driving (SADD) group at the high school and had been active in Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD). She had been instrumental in getting the high school to use Breathalyzers at dances and other social events and helped bring back the “mock car crash” event at the high school.

Her efforts, including her involvement in the creation of the town’s first “Prevention Convention,” earned her the 1996 “Woman of the Year” award from the Housatonic Valley Coalition Against Substance Abuse.

Her techniques were sometimes controversial. She once recalled that when she attempted to focus on parents as role models by developing the “I Signed” sobriety weekend for adults, “the police had to guard my house. I received threatening calls from parents, that I was invading their home.”

Ms. Fabrizio took a several-year break in her anti-drinking work, but resumed in 2002 when she was appointed to the Ridgefield Alcohol and Drug Use Commission. “I’m back with a vegeance,” she said at the time. “Too many kids are drinking. It’s so obvious we need programs for them.”

“She worked tirelessly to help educate students of Ridgefield about the dangers of drug and alcohol abuse,” her family said this week. “She was a woman who will always be remembered as a loving mother and a person whose character was deeply rooted in kindness and generosity.

“Although her life ended much too abruptly, she lived with enough love and vigor to last a number of lifetimes.”

Ms. Fabrizio was born in Flushing, Queens, N.Y., daughter of Daniel Davis of Florida and the late Caryle Friedman Davis. She was raised in the Howard Beach section of Queens, and attended local schools and Brooklyn Collge.

For a time, she was associated with her father in his accounting firm.

Ms. Fabrizio was a former administrative assistant at the First Congregational Church of Ridgefield.

Besides her father in Florida, Ms. Fabrizio is survived by three daughters, Erica, Allison and Michelle, all of Ridgefield, and a nephew Jason Harrington.

Her mother, a sister, Brenda Harringon, and a nephew, Marine Sgt. Foster Harrington, who was killed in Iraq, died before her.

Rabbi Solomon Ackrish will lead services on Sunday at 11 a.m. in the Kane Funeral Home, 25 Catoonah Street. Burial will follow in Ridgebury Cemetery.

The family will receive friends at the funeral home on Sunday at 10.

A Period of Mourning will be observed at 19 Walnut Grove Road on Sunday evening from 6 to 9.