Sharita Sims may not live in New York, but as manager of the New York Public Library’s community wellness programs, she couldn’t be more committed to the city and its people.
The Columbia transplant gets up every morning at 5 a.m., puts in her earbuds and catches the 6:30 commuter train from East Orange, New Jersey, to midtown Manhattan. From Penn Station, it’s a short walk to the library’s Main Branch on Fifth Avenue. After that, it can be a very long day.
Her schedule varies — especially if she’s visiting one of the system’s 89 circulating branches in Manhattan, Staten Island or the Bronx — but it’s not unusual for her to work until 6:30, 7, even 8 at night, fueled not by coffee but Crystal Light and the occasional Diet Coke.
“People often ask me how I keep going,” she says when we meet by the iconic marble lions on Fifth Avenue. “I know it’s a cliche, but I really just love this work. I could do it all day and need nothing. Honestly.”
The library doesn’t open for another hour, but sitting for the interview in the library’s second-floor map room, Sims is an open book. She wanted to be a doctor, she says. That’s what she told local children’s television program host Joe Pinner on Mr. Knozit when she was little. That’s what she told herself through high school and into college. She started undergrad at Columbia College and studied for the MCAT on the side.
“And then life happened,” she says. “I had my first son and quit school.”
But Sims didn’t quit education. After giving college another go online, she decided
she wanted more from life. So she got a job in the registrar’s office at USC and began
taking free classes through the university’s employee tuition assistance program,
initially in public health. Then USC launched the bachelor’s in social
work program.
“It’s challenging, but it’s also very rewarding because any time you’re amongst the people, you’re learning.”
“Social work found me,” she says. “My sister is a survivor of domestic violence. Threats, safety plans, suicide risk — we experienced all those things in my family, and it was a social worker that helped us navigate the different systems. When USC announced they were going to offer the BSW, I was like, ‘Yes. This is what I need to do.’”
And that’s what she did. After completing the degree in 2015, Sims landed a job in the relatively new social work program at Columbia’s Richland Library. Under the guidance and mentorship of program director and fellow USC social work alumna Lee Patterson, she helped expand Richland Library’s outreach through flu clinics, blood pressure clinics and a range of other patron services.
In 2022, six years after Sims joined Richland Library’s social work team, Patterson saw the listing for the New York job and encouraged her protégé to apply.
Now, Sims is applying her training, experience and perspective in three of New York City’s five boroughs. Most of her time is spent managing the system’s health and wellness programs, but she tries to get out in the community as often as possible.
“It’s challenging, but it’s also very rewarding because any time you’re amongst the people, you’re learning,” she says. “You meet people you never would have met before. You hear their stories. You get to celebrate their triumphs and even share in their failures. It’s a beautiful thing that I think only happens in a community space like a library.”
Sims may be proudest, though, of the New York Public Library’s social work intern
program, which is
now hosting 15 social workers in training — its largest cadre since it launched in
2017.
“When I started here, the social work intern program was still very new to the library. There was just one partnership with New York University,” she says. “We now have 12 agreements with colleges and universities in New York City and around the state. We’ve been able to host more students in more branches, which are then able to provide resources to the patrons we serve throughout New York.”
To Sims, building that kind of network is essential to community wellness. And building it in a city the size of New York, where the impact can be felt far and wide, only adds to her satisfaction.
“I never wanted to live in New York, because it’s hard, but I always saw myself working in New York, doing something right in the city,” she says. “I don’t know — it just does something to you, being here and doing the work I’m doing and meeting the people I meet. It’s honestly like a dream.”