City Of Evanston: Featured Evanstonian: Sarita Smith

Press release from the City of Evanston:

02/24/2022 5:29 PM

In honor of Black History Month, we’re featuring Sarita Smith, a lifelong Evanstonian who grew up in the 5th and 2nd Wards. As a passionate individual who saw firsthand the struggles many students of color face in the public school system, Sarita is now working to bridge the education gap by helping students succeed and change their preconceived narrative.

Sarita was a first generation college student and therefore struggled to navigate the education system. Eventually, after a few transfers, she graduated from Northeastern University with a degree in Communications and Theater.

Her career began when she worked at the YMCA in downtown Evanston throughout college and continued after graduating. As she says, “The YMCA served as a thread between [her] emerging adulthood and adulthood.” It is through her years of work at this organization, which is dedicated to filling service gaps in the community, that she learned the importance of community involvement and stepping in when help is needed.

While at the YMCA, Sarita stumbled upon her work in education by starting a national program called ACHIEVERS. This program helps students achieve post-secondary success by assisting them with college tours and helping them navigate the often confusing higher education system. Through this program, Sarita ended up working with Evanston Township High School on a regular basis.

This is where she saw many of the challenges high school students face, including social-emotional components like not showing up for themselves. She quickly realized she had a passion for social work, which led to her completing the master’s program in Social Work at UIC, earning a concentration in Education.

After receiving her post-graduate degree, Sarita began working for District 65 as its director of student assignments. This position is heavily focused on registration and aligning the values of the community and district to assign students to districts and programs. Recently, Sarita has undertaken redistricting projects through an equity lens.

Sarita is a proud Cherry Scholar, a YMCA Board Member and has previously chaired the Prepared for Adult Life Committee at Evanston Cradle to Career.

“I am an Evanston kid through and through. I attended Kingsley Elementary School and participated in Family Focus and YOU programming. I used the wonderful resources that Evanston has to offer and now I’m giving back as much as I can to the community where I grew up,” said Sarita.

This press release was produced by the City of Evanston. The views expressed here are the author’s own.