Jane K. Boorstein

Jane Kulla Boorstein, a loving wife and devoted international humanitarian passed away on Friday May 24. She is survived by her brother Peter Kulla, her three children Gail, James and William, her grandson Nicolas and great-grandson Jonah.

Jane was born in NYC in 1927 and attended Great Neck High School. She was a skilled sailor and met her future husband Allen Boorstein serendipitously on her father’s boat. Jane graduated from Hood college in 1949 and married Allen the same year. They loved and cared for each other for 68 years until he passed in 2018.

She traveled widely throughout her life and met with prominent figures across the world including Haile Selassie and Fidel Castro. She collected art from Africa and Asia and enjoyed Lagavulin Scotch. Her three children became skilled artists in the fields of photography, painting and sculpture.

After raising her family, Jane entered graduate school at the age of 50 and received a masters degree focused on the anthropology of families and communities from Teachers College at Columbia University. She was passionate about international development and family planning for women.

Jane served on the Board of Trustees of the George School and then The International Institute of Rural Reconstruction (IIRR) for 25 years where she developed Learning Our Way Out, a program which facilitated hundreds of community dialogues and educational workshops in rural Africa.

She was honored by Hood College in 2002 for her work developing the LOWO program which received a large grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and served as a model for current and future programs centered on education through community engagement.

Jane is remembered by those close to her for her winning smile, her impeccable sense of fashion, her indomitable spirit, and her commitment to helping others.

For more context about her lifelong work, please visit learningourwayout.org