FLINT, Mich.– Imari Smith was born and raised in Flint and is passionate about giving back to the community that she grew up in. She is inspired by helping people, her love of family, and being active in her church.
“I have a passion for people. For improving the health of people, the feelings of people. Just improving the outcomes of people,” she said.
She is committed to her passion for helping people both in her career and outside of work, saying she loves volunteering in her community when she isn’t working.
“I truly, honestly just want to make a difference in this world, a positive difference, the best way I can. Whether it’s just through encouragement, through my work ethic, through helping out, through smiling, through talking. Any way possible,” Imari said.
Imari is currently the Referral Process Manager for the Flint Registry. She began working at the Registry in September 2018 as a data entry interviewer, moving up to her current position in just a couple of years. She first wanted to be involved with the Flint Registry because it aligned with her passion for helping people and her community.
“I wanted to work for the Flint Registry because I felt it was one step closer to me helping to make a difference. Not only in this world, but in my community. Like I said, I’m born and raised in Flint. My community is important to me, my family is important to me, and this public health initiative was something I feel will help the overall health outcomes of the city of Flint and its residents,” she said.
Imari’s job consists of many responsibilities; leading and working together with a team to send out referrals so that people can get access to services they need, dealing with referral outcomes, and monitoring trends and analyzing data.
While she knows her work is making a difference, she recognizes that many other issues need to be addressed in the community. She said she wishes she had a way to help more, explaining that it is more profound than just a few problems.
“We put a thousand percent in the needs we can address with these service providers in hopes to continue to have the conversations in order to address greater needs… Although we are making an impact, making some sort of difference in those areas, we still have a lot more work to do to address the overall needs of an individual,” Imari said.
Her job can be a challenge because while she helps those she can, the best she can, there will always be more help needed.
“The difficulty in this role is you see that although a participant or someone may have a need in this area, there’s a greater need that I might not, or we might not, be able to address… I wish I had some type of ability to be like, ‘Oh, what is your issue? This is it? Okay, poof, it’s gone!’,” she said.
Despite the challenges, there is a lot of good that she works to achieve every day to encourage her team and assist her community.
“What I like most about my work is being able to uplift and encourage my team so that we can do an awesome job of trying to uplift and encourage the city of Flint and the participants of the Flint Registry through making referrals,” she said.
Imari is also looking forward to seeing the results that come from the Flint Registry’s One Year Survey. The One Year Survey is for the Registry participants to fill out a year after their initial survey to see how participants are doing, what impact referrals have had on participants, and what work still needs to be done to help participants.
“Now that we have started the One Year Survey, we’re able to see the impact that service has had on not only on their lives but if they have a family life, their family’s life,” Imari said.
She wanted to express to everyone these words of encouragement:
“Whatever you do, in anything that you do, do it with love.”