Update: The Suicide of Jo Smith Leads to Her Mom’s Goal of Opening Better Parent/Child Communication

Three weeks ago today, I published the heart-wrenching story of the death of talented athlete Jo Smith who died by suicide after struggling with the stress and isolation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Here is the link to that story: Softball News: 2022 Catcher Jo’Vianni “Jo” Smith Passed Away Friday from Stress Issues Related to COVID-19

You’ll notice that her taking her life isn’t mentioned in the article at that time. It had just happened and we wanted to be sensitive to the situation at that time, although we did have the permission of Jo’s mother, Danielle Hunt, to mention that she died by suicide.

The mother’s intent was admirable and commendable, especially when you know Danielle had to be in amazing pain: she wanted to prevent other tragedies like this from happening.

A GoFundMe Page was set up and initially the goal was to reach $10,000 to cover memorial expenses. That total was quickly reached and the number was raised to $18,00 with the goal being to use any additional memorial funds to set up a scholarship in Jo’s memory.

Click HERE to go to the GoFundMe page for Jo

As of today (Sunday, April 26, 2020), there has been $16,615 raised—we hope our softball community can push this over the top of the $18K goal.

I have received dozens of comments via phone, text and email of parents and players expressing empathy for Danielle, Jo and all those who knew and loved her in her Bear Creek, California community.

If there has been some good come from this, it’s that many parents have told me they’ve sat down with their kids and openly talked about emotions, fears, concerns and honest dialog.

Wrote one parent: “Suicide is tragic under any circumstance but to lose a normally happy and healthy child to something so irrational is that much harder. It is her Mom (Danielle’s) goal to bring awareness to it now and I commend her for allowing us to speak freely about it from here forward.”

Perfectly said and I hope that all of us will learn from this as much as possible, to better ensure the health and safety of our children, who may be suffering and we not know it.

That was what Danielle has wanted and why she opened up about this as you’ll see in this Stockton, California KCRA3 news report below which has Danielle sharing her thoughts about how this “could happen to anybody’s kid.”

Click HERE to watch the video and read the news article

— Brentt Eads, Extra Inning Softball