With an MBA and an extensive background in Business Management, Sara Summerfield Dempsey brings her passion and determination along with her knowledge and experience of peer recovery support to HardBeauty as Co-Executive Director.
After working in various capacities in business, and after the economic downturn in 2008, Sara returned to her hometown of Huntington, West Virginia and saw the destruction the opioid epidemic had caused. Strong willed, faithful, hardworking people were becoming shells of themselves due to misused opioids prescribed by their doctors. In 2008, Huntington, WV was the overdose capital of the nation. Sara committed herself to assisting in expanding recovery options. She helped hundreds of men and their families recover from their struggles. In doing so, Sara became one of the first to establish a self-supporting, non-medical, peer-to-peer recovery model in the U.S. Later, she shifted her focus to women, modeling the same structure of hope and healing to provide peer resources to them.
At HardBeauty, she will be working alongside the executive team to ensure that the work of the organization is being conducted in a manner that is mission-aligned, strategic, and impactful.
“For me, recovery work is not work. It is a passion. I will create a kind, safe place to be open. I came to recovery from my own losses and struggles and I stayed because of the beauty and thrill of helping people get their lives back.”
