Jessie 3
was a beautiful
woman full of
idealism about
everything. She
cared enormously
about people and
the future.
A woman of Great Conviction
Jessie was a woman who stood by her convictions. She firmly believed that you could change the world “one person at a time,” and even tried doing so herself when she attempted to desegregate the Brooklyn YWCA pool in the 1920s.
In 1936, Jessie Smith Noyes died. Eleven years later, her husband Charles F. Noyes established the Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation as a memorial to her.
“Jessie Smith Noyes was an advocate for racial tolerance and the rights of women,” says Victor De Luca, president of the Noyes Foundation. “She would be astonished to know that 60 years after the founding of the organization that bears her name, not only women and their families are being helped by providing funding to strong women’s rights organizations, but that the Foundation is helping to foster sustainable systems that protect the environment and advocate for environmental justice.”
The Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation continues to support solutions to emerging problems and, through its interest in programs, encouraging individual growth and achievement.
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