Donna Louise Smith

Donna Smith

A memorial service celebration will be held on Saturday, October 27, 2012, at 12:00 PM at the Butler Chapel A.M.E. Zion Church at 347 Oglesby Street in Greenville, Alabama. Reverend Harold O'Neal Simpson, pastor of Butler Chapel and Reverend Peggy L. Cook, pastor of the Simpson Chapel A.M.E. Zion Church, will officiate.

Interment will be in the Magnolia Cemetery in Greenville.

A memorial service for Ms. Donna Louise Smith of Farmington Hills, Michigan, was held on Friday, October 19, at 12 PM at the John Wesley A.M.E. Zion Church, 28001 Evergreen Road in Southfield, Michigan. Reverend Al Hamilton, Pastor, officiated.

Ms. Smith, who passed away on October 9, was born Jan. 13, 1947, in Greenville, Alabama, to Donnie F. and Selena Greene Smith. A gifted student, she attended Lomax-Hannon High School in Greenville, Alabama. She entered Alabama State College and graduated in three years with a bachelors degree in sociology. During college she worked with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee to register African-American voters in the Alabama Civil Rights Movement.

After graduation, she taught in the Greenville School System before entering the Tuskegee Institute where she earned a masters degree in guidance and counseling. She worked for two years as a student counselor at Paine College in Augusta, Georgia, before returning to Tuskegee to recruit and counsel students in a college preparatory program. She also worked as a research assistant in the Tuskegee history department.

She returned to Greenville to care for her parents. There she started Bridges, Inc., an organization that worked with youth to build their self-esteem, warn against drug use, teach conflict resolution and provide them with cultural opportunities. Working from home, she raised money and arranged bus transportation to take youth to museums and dance, musical and theater performances. They traveled Alabama and witnessed works by masters ranging from Shakespeare to August Wilson. She not only urged them to attend college, but she contacted people who could help them with admission and financial aid. She also worked with children in a summer recreation program at the Dunbar Center in Greenville with the Parks and Recreation Department with Mr. Jerome Harris.

Relocating to Michigan, she helped raise funds and obtain supplies to send students to medical school in Cuba for free with Doctors4Detroit. She maintained an interest in working with the youth she was in contact with. She also joined the John Wesley A.M.E. Zion Church.

She was preceded in death by her parents and by her sister, Kate Esther Smith.

She leaves her companion, Nathan E. Pearson, Jr., M.D., of Farmington Hills, Michigan; cousins John Greene of Wisconsin., Jerome Harris of Greenville, Alabama, Linda Sims of Huntsville, Alabama, Johnny Womack of Huntsville, Alabama, Wanda Sims of Detroit, Michigan, Beverly Loehand of Southfield, Michigan, Rey Ronnie Sims of Clinton, Michigan, Rhonda Greene of Detroit, Michigan, and Elizabeth Horten-Patterson of Detroit, Michigan; and.friends Gloria Hayes of Enterprise, Alabama, Ahmed and (Dorothia) Mbalia of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Willie (Mukasa) and Mamuna Ricks of Stone Mountain, Georgia, Olivia Rudolph of Greenville, Alabama, Frances Shine of Greenville, Alabama, Estelle Womack of Greenville, Alabama, Cheryl Pace, and Johnetta Ricks of Detroit, Michigan.

Memorial donations should be sent to the Division of GYN Oncology at the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute, Contributions (VE01FS), 4100 John R, Detroit, Michigan, 48201, or Karmanos.org or (248) 304-2931.

Services by Dudley Funeral Home of Dublin, Georgia, and by Swanson Funeral Home, Inc., of Detroit, Michigan.

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