In celebration of Jill Silton’s 90th birthday this October, we are establishing a Scholarship Fund at Santa Monica College. This fund honors her insatiable quest for knowledge, her thirst to understand the
wider world, and her lifelong desire to try new things every day and will foster and
support those same attributes in deserving students.
Whether you know her as Jill or Mommy or Mormor or Farmor, you have undoubtedly been inspired by her curiosity, her sense of adventure, the stories and photographs of her travels, and her collections of fascinating and beautiful objects and textiles from around the world. She has curated these items not as possessions, but as markers of stories of families she has stayed with from the jungles of the Lacandon forest in Mexico to the Arctic Tundra and the Tibetan plateaus. She has sought to understand the values, histories, traditions and cultures of people from widely different backgrounds than her own and has created strong connections and friendships everywhere she has been.
Jill has spent a lifetime breaking societal norms and defying the expectations of her generation—whether by wearing jeans to the opera as a rebellious teenager, racing airplanes and getting degrees in Archeology as a “stay-at-home mom”, or pushing her car to its limits on a runway.
She treats each experience in life as something to learn from. While she is being carried through the jungle after having fallen off of a pyramid at the solstice and breaking her ankle in many places, she is floating with butterflies, thinking about how they see the world, what medicinal properties they might have, how they are seen and used by the people of the forest–instead of feeling the pain. Because she chose to, because she is stubborn, because she believes in mind over matter.
We invite you to contribute to this scholarship to honor Jill’s lifelong commitment to curiosity and adventure and provide the next generation of students support as they embark on their own journeys to find wonder and awe in the world around them.
For donations by check, please make your check payable to:
Santa Monica College Foundation
1900 Pico Blvd.
Santa Monica, CA 90405
On the memo line, please write: Jill Silton Scholarship
For additional ways to give —such as stock transfers, donor-advised funds, and estate gifts —visit our Ways to Give page for forms and detailed instructions.
Donations to Santa Monica College Foundation are tax-deductible.
SMC Foundation is an IRS-recognized 501(c)(3) organization, ID# 95-6047779