Staff of Safe & Sound Hillsborough

Rosalia Vergara-Smith was born and raised in New York City where she graduated from Hillcrest High School. She has been a resident of the Tampa Bay community for close to 25 years where she lives with her family and attended Hillsborough Community College.

Ms. Smith has a passion for justice, crime reduction, the visual and performing arts and working with youth. Her career started through her volunteer work with Artist Unlimited, Inc., a not-for-profit Visual Art Center in the heart of the Channel District, where she developed herself into a position alongside the Executive Director, to coordinate a highly successful summer arts program for children; a year-round schedule of classes for adult, teens and children; gallery exhibits for local and nationally based artists that rotated on a quarterly basis, her work with youth in a Pinellas County diversion program called “R” Club with the DJJ for Middle School students; coordinating artists for several pilot programs including Prodigy at UACDC and HARC. Her hands-on approach to learning while working with this organization has given her insight into how best to reach children and young adults on dealing with their emotions using their talents. Whether through athletics, music, photography, dance, theater or visual arts.

Ms. Smith has spent the last fourteen years as a Legislative Assistant for former State Senator and Democratic Leader Arthenia Joyner. She performed duties that ranged from resolving constituent matters, managing the office day to day, financial reports and attending meetings on the Senator’s behalf. (We can add more here) Additionally, Ms. Smith spent a year working for the Hillsborough County Legislation Delegation, where she served as a Senior Administrative Legislative Specialist to 4 Senators and 12 House Representatives. Ms. Smith is also a native Spanish speaker and used those skills to assist non-English speakers in various roles.