Eileen Reilly founded a Boston day shelter for women, then became a doctor. Decades later, she’s back to help

Dear Nonviolent Family, Eileen has been a dear friend of Agape for over 40 years. Agape was co-founded in the same year as the Women’s Lunch Place, and Suzanne remembers going to one of the first trial period, hoping for guests, and amazed at Jane, Claire Pearson and Eileen at their joyful tenacity as they put out flowers and welcomed a few women in those early days, to sit at tables with dignity and love. Since that time, Eileen has been all this report says and we are blessed to have her among us each year in Boston at the Statehouse for Stations of the Cross of Resistance, where each year she shares incredible stories of the unhoused people she serves in her street ministry. Please share this gleam of hope, this story of love and devotion, an ACT OF RESISTANCE, to the dominant culture of greed, ego, narcissism and repression. Eileen is a person of great faith, and that faith has been a beacon to her and her partner, Eddie Downes, nourished at the Paulist Center and here at Agape over the years, now 43, and we embrace our “family” as we face the days ahead, inspired by these acts of devotion by Eileen. Suzanne and Brayton on Holy Thursday, Eileen the foot washer, quite literally, if you read, Tracy Kidder’s book, Rough Sleepers, in which Eileen plays a prominent role along with Barbar McGinnis. Washer of feet, Jesus, the humble, nonviolent Messiah, thank you for Eileen. https://www.wbur.org/news/2025/04/16/womens-lunch-place-shelter-boston-eileen-reilly-mental-health