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Dr. JoAnn Fisher is DETERMINED TO HELP WOMEN VETERANS

The U.S. military is currently comprised of 20 percent women and there are more than 50,000 women veterans in Maryland alone. One of those roughly 50,000 Marylanders is a resilient and inspiring woman named Dr. JoAnn Fisher, who served in the U.S. Navy Reserve on active duty for 15 years before receiving an honorable discharge. However, Dr. Fisher had to overcome major obstacles and hardships before she joined the U.S. Navy Reserve. For eight years, the then-married mother of three was a working, welfare recipient who joined the Navy Reserve and lived in the San Francisco Bay Area in Section 8 housing with her two daughters, son, and mother. After struggling for nearly a decade, Dr. Fisher personally contacted former California Congressman Ron Dellums about becoming a reserve enlisted sailor. Congressman Dellums responded to Dr. Fisher’s inquiry and, shortly thereafter, she was placed on active duty.

“I can’t say enough great things about the late congressman,” Dr. Fisher, who was born and raised in Southeast Washington, D.C., said. “He changed my life. Workers at the California Department of Social Services said they had never had a woman welfare recipient go on active duty while taking care of their family.The U.S. Navy Reserve provided my family and me with housing on Treasure Island. At that moment, I promised myself that I would honor Congressman Dellums by doing everything possible to help women veterans.” In 2015, Dr. Fisher realized her dream when she and several women veterans established the Women Helping Woman Veterans

Veterans United Committee, Inc. (WVUCI) in Oxon Hill, Maryland. “Our mission at WVUCI is to work with women veterans to let them know they are not alone,” Dr. Fisher, a department commander of the Disabled American Veterans (DAV), Department of the District of Columbia, Inc., who earned her doctoral degree in 2014, said. “We want to be the voice to recognize the hardships and celebrate the accomplishments of women veterans. We also want to ensure the needs of women, such as clothing, food, care for their children, protecting them from domestic violence, and more, are met. We are women, and things can be tough for us.”