Jack Connors, who died last week at age 82, did many things to help Boston’s neighborhoods over the years. A successful businessman who personally gave away more than $100 million to charities, Jack also rallied others to give hundreds of millions more. As chairman of the Board of Partners Health Care, including Mass General Hospital and the Brigham, he was one of many who helped pass the Massachusetts law to enable most to have health insurance that became the model used to pass the federal Affordable Care Act — or Obamacare. 

Here in Dorchester, his donations were the key to establishing Eileen’s House for Women, which houses 30 women recovering from drugs and is located in the former convent at St. Gregory’s in Lower Mills, Dorchester. It’s run by the Gavin Foundation, a wonderful organization which operates such programs in many locations for men and women with housing, job placement, and support services.

Hundreds of Dorchester kids get to go each summer to Camp Harbor View located on Long Island in Boston Harbor.  It was Jack’s idea to start the camp and he raised the many millions to build the facilities and to operate its programs. He went even farther by raising funds to supply income supplements to the low-income families whose kids are at the camp so they can improve their home life year round.

Jack also led a major fundraising effort for Catholic schools that enabled them to continue to operate and serve 1,000 students at several locations in Dorchester under the name St. John Paul II Catholic Academy.

When the Catholic clergy sexual abuse scandal broke, Jack was one of the first major figures to step up and criticize Cardinal Law for his role in covering up for the priests who abused kids.

Years later, I asked Jack about his vocal leadership on the matter. In an email to me in 2017, he wrote: “I’m not sure anyone could have known just how terribly so many of Cardinal Law’s actions and inactions would play out.  He was far from the only church leader to contribute to a couple of generations of distrust, but he was among the most evil. I occasionally remind myself that my faith is based on the life of Christ and his thoughtfulness toward others. It has nothing to do with the hierarchy, Vatican art museums, or the Church’s lack of respect for women as equals or its treatment of gays and lesbians.”

Nearly 25 years ago, Boston missed an opportunity to join the Community Preservation Act (CPA), which would have meant $20 million a year for affordable housing and other improvements in the city. Later, when the Dorchester-based Mass Affordable Housing Alliance and other groups launched a campaign to bring the CPA to Boston, they found an ally in Jack Connors, who stepped up to publicly endorse it. Mayor Walsh added his support as well and with Jack’s message to the business community, it passed and it is now funding millions each year for housing, historic preservation, and parks.

Jack also played a role in the passage of the Criminal Justice Reform Act of 2018. Many of its provisions have led to the prison population being cut by 50 percent and many thousands getting diverted to drug treatment instead of to prison.

Another saintly Boston figure, a friend of Jack’s named Al Kaneb, worked on criminal justice reform and re-entry for many years. Al set up meetings for the two of us to meet with Jack about issues such as the long mandatory minimum sentences on drug charges that drove mass incarceration rates. In 2017, I was director of Massachusetts Communities Action Network, working on pending criminal justice reform legislation along with other groups in the Jobs Not Jails Coalition.

I showed Jack maps of Dorchester and Roxbury with dots at the addresses where people who were or had been imprisoned lived. Jack said, “That’s where my kids are,” referring to the young people who attended his wonderful Camp Harbor View.

Jack said he’d call Robert DeLeo, then the House speaker, and then-governor Charlie Baker on what we supported, but then he directed me to give him his “homework’’ of talking points. He made the calls, reported the responses to me, and called again and again when we needed it. 

What happened with this bill? Five of the long mandatory minimum sentences were repealed and numerous other reforms passed in the 2018 bill that has changed the lives of so many thousands and will continue to do so for generations. He used his powers of persuasion and access to help in this campaign to change laws to create more justice.

Thanks to you Jack, always.

Lew Finfer is a Dorchester resident who directs MA Action for Justice.