Over more than 40 years, Don and Jann Wendelboe Smith have provided a home to some 150 foster children in need of love and safety.
The children arrive broken and hardened, some never having been able to trust an adult before. Many do drugs or cut themselves or sneak out at night. And yet, over more than 40 years, Don and Jann Wendelboe Smith (BS ’72) have provided a home to some 150 foster children in need of love and safety.
While working as a juvenile probation officer for Calgary, Alberta, and expecting her first child, Jann Smith attended a presentation on the need for foster parents for teens. She told the social worker that she and her husband might be interested. “That was a Monday, my last day of work was Wednesday, and on Friday morning, the same worker appeared on our doorstep with a skinny 14-year-old girl—and her dog,” remembers Jann. “We didn’t even have a bed for her yet!” Thus began a career in fostering that eventually led to a group home for five girls at a time in addition to their own five children.
Read the Foster's full story at BYU Magazine.
Full Name: Jann Wendelboe Smith
Grad Year: BS 1972
College: Family, Home, and Social Sciences
Post date: February 21, 2018
Author:
Andrew Bay