Joni Eareckson Tada

Joni Eareckson Tada is a beloved Christian author, speaker, and an internationally renowned advocate for people with disabilities. She is the Founder and CEO of Joni and Friends, a Christian organization known for sharing hope through hardship within the disability community. Located in Agoura Hills, California, the Joni and Friends International Disability Center serves as a hub for a global outreach that impacts hundreds of thousands of people with disabilities and their families.

A diving accident in 1967 left Tada, then 17, a quadriplegic in a wheelchair. After two years of struggling through depression and rehabilitation, she emerged with new skills and a fresh determination to help others in similar situations. During her rehabilitation, she spent long months learning how to paint with a brush between her teeth. Her high-detail fine art paintings and prints are sought-after and collected.

Her best-selling autobiography "Joni" and the feature film of the same name have been translated into many languages, introducing her to people around the world. Tada has also visited over 50 countries, multiple times.

Tada has served on the National Council on Disability and on the Disability Advisory Committee to the U.S. State Department. She has served as Senior Associate for Disability Concerns for the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization and serves in an advisory capacity to the American Leprosy Mission, the National Institute on Learning Disabilities, Christian Blind Mission International, as well as on the Board of Reference for the Christian Medical and Dental Society. Tada and her husband, Ken, currently serve on the Young Life Capernaum Board.

She has received numerous other awards and honors, including the American Academy of Achievement’s Golden Plate Award; The Courage Award from the Courage Rehabilitation Center; The Award of Excellence from the Patricia Neal Rehabilitation Center; The Victory Award from the National Rehabilitation Hospital; and The Golden Word Award from the International Bible Society. In recognition of her work to promote the well-being of pre-born children with disabilities, the elderly, and the medically fragile, Tada received the Alan E. Sears Award in 2019 from Alliance Defending Freedom.