Our Founder

Ruth Rollins is a dedicated advocate and community leader driven by a profound commitment to ending gun violence and its devastating impact on families. Inspired by the tragic loss of her son, Warren Daniel Hairston, in 2007, Ruth co-founded Operation LIPSTICK, a nationally recognized organization addressing gun trafficking. In 2017, she established We Are Better Together to offer comprehensive support and education to families impacted by gun violence on both sides of the tragedy. Recognizing the shared trauma experienced by families of loved ones that cause harm and experience it, Ruth created a safe space for healing, advocacy, and empowerment.

Ruth has been widely recognized for her exceptional community service and advocacy. She is a 2024 Boston Women’s Fund Award recipient and a DA’s Survivor Advocate. Her dedication to her community was further acknowledged with the 2023 ABCD Community Hero Award, and the Inform Influence Impact Award from Louis D. Brown Peace Institute. Additionally, she was named one of the City of Boston’s 2024 EXTRAordinary Women and a 2022 American Red Cross of MA Hero. Furthering the accolades, she was honored as Career Collaborative Alumni of the Year.

A skilled facilitator and compassionate leader, Ruth possesses a unique ability to connect with individuals and build strong communities. Her unwavering dedication to transforming lives and breaking cycles of violence has made her a respected voice in the fight for peace and justice.

Our Story

We Are Better Together Warren Daniel Hairston Project was founded by Ruth Rollins in 2017, after the murder of her son, Danny Hairston, and the incarceration of her second son. Although there were services available for homicide victim’s families (survivors), there weren’t any available to mothers who had lost loved ones to incarceration.

Ruth experienced the grief, shame, and stigma of losing a child and of being a parent whose child is causing disorder in the community. During this time, she realized that addressing the trauma of her past was essential to the healing process.

Ruth found her voice and founded We Are Better Together Warren Daniel Hairston Project to honor her son’s legacy and to engage and empower mothers impacted on both sides of gun violence in the peacemaking process. We Are Better Together aims to bring together families impacted on both sides by homicide and incarceration in order to foster healing and unity in the community.

Our Mission

We Are Better Together Warren Daniel Hairston Project (WAB2G) connects and heals women and girls affected by homicide and incarceration to prevent the cycles of violence and victimization

Our Core Values

Accountability

Identify and understand how we are personally impacted by cycles of historical violence and create personalized strategies for self-care and healing.

Advocacy

Inspire and mobilize our communities in support of legislative and social changes that would prevent community harm, gun violence, and incarceration and provide support to those impacted by these issues.

Compassion

Cultivate the ability to recognize and understand the similarities and differences between others’ feelings, reactions, and points of view and our own.

In doing so, we create a community that accepts loss as its key unifying tenet in which we can co-exist without retribution or further violence.

Transformational Healing

Create safe spaces for radical healing and transformation to ensure the sustainability of the movement and develop community-driven approaches to interrupt the cycles of violence and victimization. Promote communication, healing, and forgiveness among survivors of homicide and those impacted by incarceration.

Prevention

WAB2G’s programs recognize and demonstrate the power and influence that mothers affected on both sides of violence can have in the community when they choose to heal and take collective action to disrupt cycles of violence.

Resilience

Create community change agents by providing training in trauma-informed care and the Principles of Peace which foster personal resilience and promote intergenerational healing and self-care.

Board Members & Staff