Roberta Evantash
Roberta Evantash has taken on many roles at Adoptions From The Heart since the beginning of its inception. Roberta and Adoptions From The Heart Founder, Maxine Chalker, are childhood friends. “I started working with Maxine when the
organization was only a year old. At the time I was paid as an hourly worker and spent the majority of my time educating people that open adoption was a good thing,” Roberta explained. Maxine, herself as an adoptee, wanted to give adoption a new face by breaking down the barriers and taking some of the mystery out of the adoption process. As a result, AFTH is a huge advocate for open adoption. During her time with AFTH, some of Roberta’s roles included the Director of the Wynnewood office, Manager of International Services, and full-time social worker.
Working at Adoptions From The Heart for so many years has been rewarding for Roberta. “Since the beginning, I felt like I was a part of building a successful organization that was going to change the world,” Roberta said. She is glad to be a part of an organization that is so passionate about the work they are doing. Throughout her career, she has been inspired by all of her social worker colleagues. “They are all excellent professionals and I love learning from each other every day,” she shared. While learning is something Roberta values a lot, she loves seeing success when adoptions come to life. “I feel good every time I hear from someone after placement and they let me know how things are doing. I love getting those updates and hearing about families that were made because of adoption,” Roberta said.
Roberta’s favorite part of her job is meeting all the different people and hearing their stories. “There is always a new person to learn from, which keeps every day interesting,” Roberta laughed. Those lessons occur when something crazy happens. “There will be times when a birth mother changes her mind or some other crazy experience would happen. However, somehow we are always able to resolve things and make everyone happy,” Roberta said.
Adoption has many meanings to many people. Roberta’s meaning of adoption stems from her experience as a social worker. “People that might have not ever known one another, get a chance to grow together. It’s family, it’s learning to get along with many different aspects of a family, and learning new concepts.” Roberta wants people to stop being afraid of adoption. “Explore and learn about it. It’s not something anyone should feel nervous about educating themselves about. There’s a bunch of different ways to make a family and adoption is one of
them.
