When Kathleen Weiner took up her post as chief development officer for Outer Cape Health Services in 2017, she launched a capital campaign and chose Irene Daitch as one of the four honorary chairs. Irene was 93 at the time.

“I was impressed by Irene’s love and passion for Wellfleet and her determination to see the renovation of the old Wellfleet health center through,” Weiner said.

And see it through she did. Constructed from a Sears Roebuck kit in 1966, the Wellfleet Outer Cape Health building was the oldest community health center structure in Massachusetts. The transformation of the old building into a bright, clean medical facility was completed in June 2019, and at the center of the group on the day of the ribbon cutting that opened the new facility was Irene, oversized scissors in hand.

Irene died at Cape Cod Hospital on Feb. 25, 2024 after spending the day with her family. She was 100.

The daughter of Jack and Frances Myers, Irene was born on Nov. 10, 1923 in Winthrop. Her parents were Eastern European immigrants; her father, who ran an auto body shop in the south end of Boston that serviced delivery trucks from the Boston Herald and Boston Globe, was from Russia, and her mother “Fannie,” who sold newspapers on the streets of the West End, was from Lithuania.

Irene spent her earliest years in Roxbury before the family moved to Brighton. She graduated from Brighton High School in 1941 and went on to earn a sociology degree from Bates College in Lewiston, Maine in 1945.

Her first job was as a camp counselor at Camp Tevya in Brookline, N.H. It was in that job that Irene’s genius for caring for and organizing people became clear, said her daughter, Barbara. While she was escorting a group of campers back to Boston on the train, it derailed (though not dangerously), and the group had to leave the train to wait for other transportation. To keep spirits up and pass the time, Irene organized the campers into a singing group. The derailment and the impromptu singing were later written up in the Globe.

“She never lost that,” Barbara said. “She was always enthusiastic, high energy, and smart; she knew how to handle groups of people. And she woke up every morning with a smile on her face.”

Irene met her future husband, Herbert Edward Daitch, at Bates “on a blind date once removed,” as Barbara put it. One of Herbert’s friends needed a car to go on a date, so Herbert agreed to supply the car if his friend supplied a date for him. That turned out to be a friend of Irene’s.

Irene married Herbert in 1944, between her junior and senior years, and she managed to wrangle a semester at Radcliffe College to be near Herbert, who was in dental school at Tufts.

The couple settled in Belmont, where Herbert established a dental practice while Irene worked for Jewish Vocational Services after World War II. She also worked for a time at her aunt’s clothing store, and having been a choral singer in college, she founded the Belmont Community Chorus. But after their daughter was born, Irene stayed at home until, Barbara said, “she wanted more than just waiting for her daughter to come home from school.”

She applied to Boston University and received a master of social work degree there in 1961.

Irene went on to a 25-year career as a clinical social worker at McLean Hospital in Belmont, considered an elite and luxurious institution for psychiatric treatment.

The family began vacationing in Wellfleet in 1958, first renting a house and then buying one in 1961at the corner of Main and Commercial streets. In 1978, the family bought the house on Chequessett Neck Road to which Irene and Herbert retired in 1989.

Barbara remembers the “golden days” of late summer in Irene’s preretirement years building the foundation of Irene’s deep love for the town.

Once retired, Irene and Herbert devoted themselves to community life. Irene ran a stroke recovery group with a former colleague for a time, and Herbert served on the board of the conservation trust, on which Barbara currently serves. But Irene’s greatest commitment was to the preservation and improvement of health care in Wellfleet.

From 1995 to 2005, she served on the board of Outer Cape Health Services and was its president from 2003 to 2005. At a time when the health center’s Wellfleet facility was in danger of closing — there was talk of moving it to Orleans, according to Barbara — Irene fought hard to keep it in Wellfleet.

“She was wonderful,” said Weiner.

“She was extremely generous with her time and her love,” said Barbara. “She delighted in and doted on my daughter, Jocelyn, and would light up like a Christmas tree when Jocelyn came into the room.”

Irene is survived by her daughter, Barbara Cary of Wellfleet, and granddaughter, Jocelyn Cary of Boston; by nieces Susan Daitch of Brooklyn, N.Y. and Karen Myers of Acton; by nephew Alan Futerfas of New York City; and by many grandnieces and grandnephews.

Her funeral took place in Sharon at Sharon Memorial Park on Feb. 29. A celebration of Irene’s life will take place in the summer or fall in Wellfleet, with details to be announced.

Donations in Irene’s name can be made to Outer Cape Health Services at outercape.org/giving/.