Sara graduated from Oliverian in 2010 after attending Oliworld for her Junior and Senior years. She went on to study Social Work at Rutgers University in New Jersey. During her time at school on the East Coast, Sara made it a point to visit Oli’s campus annually to show her friends the place that’s so close to her heart and stay connected with her Oliverian family. She’s always been eager to stay in touch with her Oliverian family across the country and world, since they are the people who saw her potential before she saw it in herself and have always accepted her for who she is.

Sara went on to receive her Masters in Social Work Management and Policy from the Rutgers University Graduate School of Social Work, before making the move across the country and joining the Oliverian board. While working toward her Masters, she worked on the Sesame Street Resilience Project, helping families with young children navigate challenging life situations such as incarceration and divorce. The project was geared toward creating toolkits for young children to help them thrive in their environment despite these challenges. Sara sees a similar passion in contributing to Oliverian through her role on the board.

Sara now lives in Hood River, Oregon where she works as a full-time Associate Director at a market research agency called Kelton Global. On nights and weekends she enjoys working at her local climbing gym, helping to inspire folks to be themselves, find their place in their community, and never apologize for taking up space. During her free time, she’s dedicated to getting outside on adventures with her four-legged partner in crime, Dakota, and is on a mission to visit every US National Park (just one left!).

What do you love most about Oli?
The amazing humans who work at Oliverian have a deep understanding that kids are more than their environment. They were the first people to look at me and see past the ‘problem child’ that everybody else chose to see. They showed up for me time and again through every bump in the road and treated me with respect and dignity along the way. It’s a magical place where not only the students benefit from their relationships with faculty and staff from all walks of life, but their mentors grow alongside them during their time spent working at Oli. To name a few, Oliverian gave me a place to call home, a place to learn who I was and who I wanted to be, a place to own my decisions, a passion for the outdoors, and an extended family for the rest of my life.