Celebrate Brookline’s Women Of The Year Later This Week

BROOKLINE, MA – Three Brookline women will be celebrated later this week as Women of the Year for 2023.

Betsy DeWitt, Ruth Ellen Fitch, and Jane Piercy were chosen as Brookline’s Women of the Year out of more than 15 nominees, according to the town website.

They will be celebrated in a virtual event on Wednesday, March 29 from 7:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

The Brookline Woman of the Year is the Brookline Commission for Women’s longest-standing tradition and honors women from the community who have made a significant impact on the town, according to the town website.

Read profiles about these award-winning women from Brookline’s website:

Betsy DeWitt has devoted herself to Brookline over the past 45 years, including leading and transforming the Brookline Community Foundation from 1984-2006, serving as a member of the Town’s Advisory Committee and then Chair of the Select Board, and most recently energizing informed democracy as President of the League of Women Voters Brookline. Betsy’s impact on all aspects of Brookline life, from championing public art to funding our schools to supporting non-profit organizations to civic engagement in democracy, cannot be measured.

Ruth Ellen Fitch has led by example for decades to break down barriers and advance racial equity in health, education, and civic life in Brookline and the Commonwealth. Active in the 1970s with the Foundation for Brookline Housing to support Black families moving to Brookline, Ruth Ellen became one of Brookline’s first METCO directors and has since stepped up time and again to lend her considerable skills in finance and the law to the Town’s Advisory Committee, Financial Planning Advisory Committee, and more. Ruth Ellen was also the first Black woman partner at a major Boston law firm (Palmer & Dodge), after which she became CEO of the Dimock Center in Roxbury, capping a lifetime of trailblazing work to address persistent health care inequities for women in historically underserved urban communities.

Jane Piercy has been a tireless champion for women and girls, and a warrior for compassionate and caring reproductive health care access and equity. Jane is co-founder of a group that has gathered an army of volunteers and supporters who have provided ongoing, essential support to sustain Brookline’s independent women’s health clinic (headed by last year’s Woman of the Year, Lolly Delli-Bovi). Jane is now Managing Director of Reproductive Equity Now, bringing together her personal passions and professional skills, where she is helping R.E.N. lead Massachusetts and the nation in the fight for reproductive health and equity in the post-ROE era.