Community Engagement Coordinator

 

Cori Smith (b.1994) is a community-rooted cultural worker, literary advocate, and youth organizer from Wyandotte County (KCK).

Her work centers Black storytelling as a tool for collective memory, cultural archival, and community transformation. She is the founder of a Black-owned bookstore that serves as both a literary space and cultural sanctuary for intergenerational joy, resistance, and imagination.

Cori currently serves as the Community Engagement Coordinator at Charlotte Street, where she provides support for strategy, planning, and implementation of outreach, cross-sector partnerships, and volunteer engagement efforts that amplify artist voices and expand access to creative opportunities.

A graduate of Clark Atlanta University, her work is informed by a background in education, oral history, and arts access. Though not formally trained in the arts, her practice is deeply creative—shaped by years of curating space, designing curriculum, and building programs that center marginalized voices. Her current interests include memory work, spatial justice, Black feminist praxis, and slow care as a tool for community sustainability.

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