Sherry Whitehawk has eight grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. For most grandparents that’s where the counting stops. Not so for Sherry.

For clarification: many still know her as Sherryl and still call her that, but she will explain how that additional letter in her first name came about, and why it is no longer there.

Since her retirement from a career in social work and very active volunteer participation in community and Indigenous organizations, she became a story-teller known as Grandma Sherry, talking about her childhood and youth growing up on a reserve in southwest Manitoba, and touching on many indigenous aspects of life.

She is also grandma now to literally tens of thousands of people who subscribe to her TikTok channel, where she has 250,000 followers and almost two and a half million likes. Plus some thousands more on Facebook and Instagram.

This spring and summer, Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN)  Language channel is showing a series of 13 half-hour programs called Grandma Sherry’s Kitchen – a cooking show that was recorded in Yorkton last year. 

Grandma Sherry, who three years ago had those 10 grand- and great-grandchildren, is now everybody’s grandma.