Toni DeVito

Trinity drew Toni in during Advent of 2018, and she found a home here for worship, contemplation, and social justice. Since joining, she has volunteered at the bookstore (now transformed into the Welcome Center), worked with Shannon in the office, and served as a member of the Contemplative Mini-Retreat Team and Spiritual Formation Commission.

She loves the Wednesday evening meals and classes and even taught one years ago on Spirituality and the Twelve Steps. Currently, she is a Journeys co-facilitator and recently started a Spiritual Reading and Discussion Book Group at Trinity.

A native of Los Angeles, Toni has called Oregon her second home since childhood, when her family spent summers camping, rafting, and exploring the outdoors. As a city girl at heart, she has lived in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Manhattan. She spent a year in Beijing in 2013, immersing herself in a culture and language completely new to her, an experience that deepened her appreciation for different perspectives.

Now retired, Toni’s career spanned non-profit administration and fundraising. She worked at organizations such as the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Santa Monica Museum of Art. Her first job was at the Portland Opera, where she even appeared as a supernumerary in Don Giovanni.

Toni returned to Portland in 2018 and lives in Irvington with my 13-pound canine companion Archie. Her younger son, a hairdresser and Reed graduate, lives nearby; her older son died in 2022.

Toni does a lot of volunteer work in the recovery community. She is a voracious reader and a lover of cinema, live music (the Jack London Revue is a favorite for jazz), and visual art.

A few fun facts:

In 1996, Toni started a book group in Los Angeles that still meets monthly. Over the years, she has forged lasting friendships as the group explored works by authors like Dostoevsky, Leslie Jamison, and Jonathan Franzen. Her favorite book of 2024 was the Booker Prize winner Orbital by Samantha Harvey, a celestial perspective on Earth through the eyes of astronauts on the International Space Station.

Toni has practiced Iyengar yoga for decades, and her favorite pose is headstand, which she finds offers new perspectives—both literally and metaphorically.

In 2013, Toni lived for a year in Beijing on the 34th floor of a '90s-era apartment block near the United States Embassy. Living in a country where she didn’t speak the language or know the culture was a vast learning experience—another way to find new perspectives on the world.