Love Your Block Day

During this week’s Council meeting, the Council adopted a resolution recognizing April 27, 2024 as the Karen Wepsic Jamaica Plain Love Your Block Day of 2024.

Karen Wepsic, born 1938 was a community activist in Jamaica Plain, involved in many public-spirited efforts and served on a variety of local community organizations.

Wepsic graduated with a degree in Chemistry from Cornell University, was a lab assistant at Woods Hole Oceanographic in 1959, obtained a PhD from Yale University in 1967 in BioPhysics while attending the MGH School of Nursing, where she graduated as an RN in 1968. She was a Hospital Albert Schweitzer volunteer in Haiti in 1972 and a staff member at Harvard Medical School's Department of Biochemistry from 1978-2012.

Wepsic served humbly, selflessly and faithfully a large and diverse group of local community organizations, including The Footlight Club, the Jamaica Pond Association, the Arborway Committee for Public Transit, the MBTA Rider Oversight Committee, Fenway Garden Society Victory Gardens, Peterborough Senior Center, MIT Sailing, Friends of Melnea Cass Boulevard and Action for Equity.

Her presence was felt in several neighborhoods including Jamaica Plain, Mission Hill, the Fenway, South Boston and Roxbury. She loved to participate in other public-oriented activities like the annual Wake Up the Earth celebration along the Southwest Corridor and sweeping Centre Street during spring clean-up.

The Annual Jamaica Plain Love Your Block Clean Up will be held on Saturday, April 27, 2024, and will join residents and neighbors with City agencies to improve Jamaica Plain.