WARREN — The Warren Heritage Center has created an endowment fund in memory of Kay Fisher, an integral founding member of the Warren Heritage Center board, to continue work at the Kinsman House.

After her husband’s death in 1982, Kay launched herself into a life of volunteer service to her beloved Warren community. After Kay’s death in 2020, her daughters, Holly and Heidi, followed in their mother’s footsteps with a generous donation, which will create the foundation for the endowment.

In honor of what would have been Fisher’s 100th birthday on Oct. 17, the WHC is starting a campaign to encourage those who remember Fisher and who want to continue her dream of preserving Warren’s history and the Kinsman House to donate to the Kay Fisher Endowment Memorial Fund.

Fisher was a member of many Warren historical organizations, including The Upton Association, the Historic Perkins Homestead Neighborhood Association and the Warren Heritage Center. She was always on the lookout for “the next thing that needed attention” to preserve Warren’s exceptional history.

When it came to the long battle for historic downtown Warren, Fisher demonstrated persistence and fearlessness in her many undertakings, as she was not above knocking on doors to crusade for her cause.

Her devotion to the betterment of Warren wasn’t limited to the preservation of its history. She was also dedicated to improving Warren as a positive place for people to live in the present. To this end, she served for many years on numerous civic boards and committees and in countless drives and organizations, including PTO, Y-Teens, Easter Seals, United Way, Trumbull 100, Trumbull Town Hall, Wean Neighborhood Success Grants, YWCA, Warren City Council Community Development (HUD) Block Grants and more.

Fisher was active in supporting the campaigns of several candidates of both parties for local public office, promoting the prospects of the best person for the job without regard to partisanship. She was always willing to invest her own sweat in doing the “grunt” work alongside those she enlisted in any effort — pushing wheelbarrows, moving bricks, climbing ladders, cleaning floors and getting dirty — providing an example that great things only happen when everyone puts their back into it.

The Warren Heritage Center is a not-for-profit historical house museum. The center preserves and uses its collection, historical site and museum to engage and inspire a diverse audience to explore the history and culture of the city of Warren. The WHC aims to link the community’s past to its present and future.

Checks can be made out and sent to the Community Foundation of the Mahoning Valley, 201 E. Commerce St. #150, Youngstown, OH 44503. Donors should put Kay Fisher Memorial Endowment Fund on the memo line.