Rev. Jeannette J. Phillips, a leader in the Hudson Valley health care sector and a beloved presence in Stamford’s faith-based community, passed away at the age of 90.
Phillips was born in New York City’s Harlem neighborhood in 1933 and attended Booker T. Washington High School in Miami. After graduating, Phillips accepted a job at the Veterans Hospital in Montrose, New York, where she gained insight on the challenges that many people faced in accessing quality health care. became passionate about increasing access to quality health care.
In 1972, Phillips worked with Deputy Commissioner of the Westchester Health Department Dr. Phyllis Koteen, Dr. Ron Johnson of the New York Medical Academy at Grasslands in Valhalla, and Westchester Community Action Program Director Harriet Gelfan to secure one of the last grants from the Office of Economic Opportunity to open the Peekskill Area Ambulatory Health Care Center in 1975.
The organization later became Sun River Health and is one of the largest Federally Qualified Health Center networks in the nation, serving patients across the Hudson Valley, New York City, and Long Island at nearly 50 sites. In 2015, Sun River Health’s Peekskill health center was renamed The Jeannette J. Phillips Community Health Center in her honor.
Phillips also served as the executive director of The Preservation Company Inc., established by Sun River Health to meet the housing needs of the Peekskill community.
“We were able to raise money with local fundraising,” she said about the efforts to launch and sustain these endeavors. “We had one particular group, the ‘Soul Sisters,’ who sold dinners, and pies, and cakes, and whatever else to help get money into the organization. You couldn’t get more grass roots than we were.”
After founding the health center, Phillips resumed her education and earned her Bachelor of Science with honors from Mercy College. She went on to attend New York Theological Seminary, later completing four years of Conference Studies in the A.M.E. Zion Church. She was ordained as a Deacon, then an Elder in 1992, and became the pastor of the historic Woodside A.M.E. Zion Church in Stamford.
“It is my faith that keeps me grounded,” she often said. “And it is my belief that God equips and strengthens those who are called to serve.”
