Marjorie Fisher
Marjorie Switow Fisher found inventive ways to improve children’s lives, from funding mobile dental clinics to using summer jobs as an opportunity for career training. Fisher majored in art at Marjorie Webster Junior College and graduated at the top of her class. After divorcing her first husband, George Frehling, in 1953, she moved to Detroit, where she married oil and real estate tycoon Max Fisher. In 1955 the Fishers began a charitable foundation focused on improving life for children and adults in Detroit, funding youth employment programs like Grow Detroit’s Young Talent, which oversees job training and placement for summer jobs and internships. They also supported the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and adopted the Brightmoor neighborhood, paying for its cleanup and social services. After her husband’s death in 2005, Fisher continued as head of the Fisher Foundation in Palm Beach, where she funded the Marjorie S. Fisher Tooth Fairy Mobile Unit, Boys and Girls Clubs in Palm Beach, and the Palm Beach Food Bank. Over time, she stepped back to enable her children to become leaders in the foundation’s efforts, finally retiring in 2011.