About Betsy
I grew up in small towns in the segregated old south. As a teenage high school student in 1960 in a small east Texas town, my first political act was to organize our high school mock election campaign for John F. Kennedy, who was running against local hero Lyndon B. Johnson.
No surprise, LBJ won. However, President Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King inspired me to have dreams and to believe that it is not what my Town does for me, but what I can do for my Town that matters.
I went on to Tulane University in New Orleans, and was involved in civil rights activities as managing editor of the college newspaper, where my advisor was Hodding Carter, a wonderful man, founder of the Greenville, Mississippi Delta-Democrat-Times, and a Pulitzer Prize winning writer on social and racial justice. I met my husband Dennis over a teletype machine reading breaking news during the Cuban missile crisis. New Orleans was within missile range and nuclear annihilation felt imminent. Continued...
Betsy’s Service for Brookline
Town Meeting Member representing Precinct 5 for the past 22 years,
- Past-President, Town Meeting Members Association
Committee on Town Organization and Structure, member six years
Advisory Committee, member 10 years — Chaired, four years
- Member, Personnel Subcommittee
- Chaired Schools Subcommittee
- Chaired Revenue Subcommittee
Service on other town committees
- Member, Joint Labor Advisory Committee
- Member, Town Audit Committee
- Member, Development Committee
- Member, Housing Resource Committee
- Member, Town-School Partnership Committees
Schools-related organizations and committees
- Lincoln School PTO President
- Led campaign to reopen question of renovating or rebuilding after several referenda had failed
- Served on initial advisory Committee which reduced cost estimate by 23%
- Served on Partnership for a New Lincoln Campaign
- Member BHS Renovations Feasibility Study Committee
- Chaired Town-wide School-Citizen Input Committee
- Member, Gifted & Talented Advisory Committee
- Member, Special Education Advisory Committee
- Member, Advisory Board, Steps to Success — leveling the education playing field for low income families
President, Brookline Improvement Coalition, a nonprofit affordable housing corporation
- BIC develops housing in partnerships with the Town, Pine Street Inn, the Committee to End Elder Homelessness, and Brookline Housing Authority. BIC has developed almost 50 affordable dwelling units.
Executive Director, Brookline Community Fund/Foundation for past 20 years
- Managed evolution of 120 year old Brookline Friendly Society into the Brookline Community Foundation.
- Set up community grants program to support local nonprofit organizations, distributing $250,000 annually.
- Established Brookline Safety Net, emergency assistance program for people in financial crisis, working closely with Brookline Community Mental Health Center, the Health Department, Human Relations Commission, Housing Authority, Council on Aging, and Interfaith Volunteers to Prevent Homelessness.
- Established Brookline Youth Fund in partnership with the Town and The Country Club.
- Sponsored a $300,000 local funders matching grant program for Brookline High School students with serious health problems, in partnership with Brookline Community Mental Health Center.
- Established annual Philanthropy Day Breakfast in collaboration with the Brookline Chamber of Commerce.
- Worked with GreenSpace Alliance and Town Parks Division to start up Brookline Parks Rangers program.
- Established Tercentennial Fund with the Town to support celebration of Brookline's 300th Anniversary.
- Supported capital campaigns for the Senior Center, the Library renovation, and the Coolidge Corner Theater
