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BOSTON - Sharon Reilly grew up on a sharecropper's farm in Mississippi in the '50s and '60s, developing a passion for social justice that over the years, drove her from the corporate world in Arkansas to Boston in 2003, bringing with her skills that came from years in higher education and Fortune 500 companies.

Today, she serves as executive director of the Women's Lunch Place, a shelter providing meals and numerous services ranging from legal, social, educational and healthcare for homeless women in need of healthy, nutrititious meals and a hand to help them along the way.

Originally, WLP was founded in 1982 by two women who'd met as volunteers at the South End homeless shelter, Pine Street Inn. It quickly met a need as the homeless population grew, in part due to changes in the state's handling of mental health patients.

Open six days a week, it offered nutritious, wholesome meals to homeless women and their children in space in the basement of Church of the Covenant. The first meal was served to a dozen women on Nov. 15, 1982 and meals were offered three days a week. By '84, a fourth day of service was added with a fifth following in '86. By 1996, WLP was operating six days a week.

In 1992, a former homeless woman was hired to provide advocacy services to the homeless guests, a program which developed quickly into an Advocacy and Legal Assistance Program.

By 2005, a full time cook was hired and today, the program offers services to more than 150 women and children.

This year, Reilly spearheaded an effort that raised $3 million to renovate the space, adding a medical suite where women can talk privately with physicians about health issues. The goal is to extend hours of service. The expansion enabled the creation of a new Creative Expressions room, a Resource Center and more ways to help WLP's guests. 

"When I invited the board of Women's Lunch Place to embark on a capital campaign," Reilly recalls, "I told them we had this window of opportunity to move the needle in our industry and that a renovated facility would help us do that. I believe that in the area of food and nutrition, we are ahead on so many fronts. In program evaluation, we are in a lead position evaluating the impact of our work in the lives of women and especially, senior women, in a population that is not well represented and yet makes up a large segment of our total population. We've made it our business to support women who are poor and homeless and we do it without a lot of red tape."

WLP, she adds, took a dingy basement and transformed it into a modern home for women and children. "That allowed us to meet unmet needs in a number of key areas that are linked to the quality of life. We added an additional shower, so more women can take showers and minimize public health risks. We added another washer/dryer to give them access to clean clothes. We expanded the nap room to give them more rest during the day; and our resource center was expanded to help them rethread their lives. We have more emphasis on jobs services and skills building. We realize that when women are stabilized, families tend to stabilize as well."

"We are providing basic services in a sluggish economy at a time when more and more women are utilizing our services. The balance is off, and yet without the services and supports that we provide, the outcome would be devastating for even more women."