Joni Eaton Smith – Remembering a JCC Community Builder!
JONI EATON SMITH – JCC Donor Champion – Benjamin & Laura Ellis Charitable Fund of the Oregon Community Foundation Trustee — April 8, 1934 – June 5, 2026
Jacksonville Community Center (JCC) is remembering and honoring Joni Eaton Smith as one of JCC’s devoted CHAMPIONS. Joni’s lifelong commitment to advocacy for youth and community building led her and her husband Buck to direct foundation funds in generous support of JCC’s Youth and Families Program in her role as Trustee of the Benjamin & Laura Ellis Charitable Fund of the Oregon Community Foundation.
Joni Smith lived a full and loving life. She was deeply committed to making the world a better place. Her thoughtful guidance to JCC has helped us plan for a sustainable Youth & Families program that includes outreach to under-served youth in our region. Scholarships for any youth activity are available to families-in-need as a result of Joni’s vision. Yet, JCC was not the sole recipient of Joni’s caring heart and compassion.
Joni’s leadership skills helped shape literally thousands of young lives as she:
- Helped found the International Student Host Family program at Cornell University, and established a similar program at The College of Wooster;
- Mobilized the community of Wooster, Ohio—as Vice President of the League of Women Voters—to approve and fund a juvenile detention facility so that youth could be held separately from incarcerated adults;
- Founded the Interfaith Housing Corporation in Wooster to help low-income families find housing and overcome discrimination. Little wonder that, in 1966, she was named among the nation’s Outstanding Young Women of America;
- Served on the Boards of the Tucson Symphony and Youth Symphony orchestras;
- Revitalized the Saint Joseph Ballet in Santa Ana, California (as Chair of the Board of Directors), to provide dance education and academic and family support to thousands of inner-city youth;
- Served as First Lady at Chapman College (now University) in California and Bethany College and Davis & Elkins College in West Virginia, where she touched the lives of students over a total of 20 years—attending at least one student event each day. In appreciation, the Trustees of Chapman named the University’s psychology building Smith Hall after Joni and her husband; and the Trustees of Davis & Elkins College honored her with the Joni Smith Softball Field.
In order to better comfort students with terminal illness, she became a Hospice volunteer. This later led to many years of caring for patients and their families in Tucson, Seattle, and Medford—where she helped found the Cancer Patient Support Program at Rogue Valley Medical Center.
In addition to serving the needs of young people and the chronically ill, her other major life’s focus was international affairs:
- Beginning with the 20th Anniversary of the United Nations in 1965, she founded the annual United Nations Observance in Wooster, hosting speakers from the international community. In 1970, she received the United Nations Outstanding Citizen Award.
- As a subscriber to The Christian Science Monitor and Foreign Affairs for 70 years —and a nightly viewer of the PBS NewsHour since its founding in 1975—she managed to keep well-informed on global issues.
- Beginning in the 1960s, she often traveled to Washington, DC, to attend Congressional Committee hearings and meet with government officials on international and geopolitical issues. Her summaries of issues discussed would then be published in the local newspaper, helping raise community awareness of international affairs.
- In 1969, she attended the Conference for National Women Leaders, and was a delegate to the State Department Conference on National Security and Priorities.
- Over the years, she and her family served as Host Family to international students from nearly every corner of the globe—beginning in 1964 with beloved Cindy Chwang, who lived with the Smith Family for three years.
- Among the treasures of her life was her family’s 59-year relationship with their ‘adopted’ son, Dr. Pierre Radja from the Democratic Republic of Congo. Dr. Radja, his five children and their families were a dominant presence in her life.
JCC has been privileged to be a part of Joni’s lifetime work. We feel her loss along with her husband, Buck and her extended family. A celebration of Joni’s life will be held at 11 a.m. on August 29, 2026, at Sun Ridge Estates Robertson Pavilion in Medford, Oregon.
