Page 7 - 2021 MCCCI BookletNewCoverVersion

In the 60’s, Mrs. Smith worked as an Avon Products representative in the greater Red Bank area. While visiting clients, she would learn of families in distress, children with nothing to eat or no winter coats, or homes with ice forming on the windows from lack of heat, families in imminent danger of homelessness due to their inability to meet their rent or mortgage payments or unfilled medical prescriptions. In response, she mobilized a donor network that included churches from the Westside Ministerium and many other philanthropic organizations. Through this network, she delivered critically needed food, clothing, electricity, heat, rent or mortgage funds and maintained a pantry and fully-stocked freezer in her basement to help area families in need.
She regularly visited area hospitals and nursing homes to comfort, pray for and encourage the sick and shut-in and she was a very active member of the Seacoast Missionary Baptist Association where she served as Chairperson of the Field Workers Department, Worship Co-Chairperson and the Booklet Committee.
She was the founder of the Phyllis Wheatley Temple No. 276 I.B.P.O.E of W’s Senior Citizens Program and led the organization as Daughter Ruler in 1982. She was also the group’s Chaplain, Trustee and Ways and Means Chairperson and, in 1991, was bestowed national’s Past Grand Dgt. Ruler honors.
Mrs. Smith was Past Worthy Matron of Martha Chapter #37, O.E.S, PHA, Oziel Grand Chapter, O.E.S., PHA, Past Chairperson of the State Queen’s Pageant and 4th O.E.S. District, Flower Chairperson and Chaplain and she served as a Trustee working to preserve the White Ridge Cemetery, a historical, African-American cemetery in Eatontown, NJ. She is a member of the NAACP’s Church Women United and a volunteer and supporter of Lunch Break in Red Bank.
In 2014, family and friends established the Pauline Smith Scholarship Foundation to continue her vision of supporting higher education for disadvantaged youth who demonstrated community service. This foundation now seeks to memorialize the life of Mrs. Pauline Smith as an ongoing model of service and an invaluable source of inspiration and hope to the power and impact that one individual can have when upholding her words to live by: “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your father which is in heaven.” Matthew 5:16