2026 Evening of Hope Honoree – Legacy of Service Award
Loretta Weinberg has dedicated her life to making the world a better place. From 2005 to 2022, following 14 years in New Jersey’s General Assembly, Loretta served in the State Senate representing the 37th Legislative District. During her time in the legislature, she was the Senate Majority Leader and a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. She also served as Vice-Chair of the Legislative Oversight Committee and as a member of the Joint Budget Oversight and the Joint Committee on Economic Justice and Equal Employment Opportunity Committee.
With a reputation for being fearless and focused on getting things done, Loretta worked tirelessly on behalf of people in need. She was a fierce advocate for issues she cared deeply about—from healthcare reform and pay equity to marriage equality and gun violence prevention—and her passion for improving services and protections for domestic violence survivors became evident in the early 1970s.
While serving as Assistant Administrator to the County of Bergen (1975 to 1985), Loretta was in the County building when Sandy Ramos, the first Center for Hope & Safety executive director, brought a group of women affected by domestic violence—along with their children and pets—to a Freeholders Meeting to make a case for the importance of funding a shelter. Asked by leadership to meet with Ms. Ramos to determine what was needed, Loretta became a founding member of the Board of Trustees of Shelter Our Sisters in 1976—helping to establish not only the shelter, but the pillars on which the organization stands today.
Years later, in 2015, she was appointed to the New Jersey Supreme Court Ad Hoc Committee on Domestic Violence to look at domestic violence and the court system. An extensive report issued by the committee in 2016 resulted in updates and reforms to the state’s domestic violence laws, procedures and policies. These included legislation designed to bring more uniformity to existing procedures as well as to institute new training requirements for law enforcement, municipal prosecutors and certain judges and judicial personnel concerning the handling of domestic violence cases.
Throughout her career in public service, Loretta continued to devote her attention and energy to increasing protections for domestic violence victims. She never shied away from controversial issues, proposing bills to strengthen laws to protect victims from gun violence, to permit prosecutors to seek jail time for abusers, and to allow women convicted of assaulting or killing their abuser to transition back into society.
Loretta’s legislative accomplishments are too numerous to count. In honoring her with a 2026 Legacy of Service Award, we celebrate her lifetime of service and her dedication to creating domestic violence policies and procedures that have been nothing short of life-changing.