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<h2>A History of Community Partnerships</h2>Sonja's dedication to community service is a top priority. Through her work and individual service, she has partnerships with the Kiwanis Club of Vulcan, the Community Food Bank of Central Alabama, and various small businesses and churches throughout District 8.

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"Sonja embodies my philosophy of "Putting People First." Her deep relationships with Birmingham City Schools, UAB, and our non-profit community are proof of her ability to make change at every level of our city. I could not be more proud to endorse her for City Council."

Sonja embodies my philosophy of "Putting People First." Her deep relationships with Birmingham City Schools, UAB, and our non-profit community are proof of her ability to make change at every level. I am proud to endorse her for City Council.Mayor Randall Woodfin

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<h3>Fighting for Our Community</h3>Let's work together to elevate District 8!

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"I’ve dedicated my career to making a difference in the lives of others. From being a high school teacher to enrolling thousands of Alabamians in health insurance through the Affordable Care Act, I know what it takes to make our communities thrive. You deserve a councilor that has proven themselves to work with you and has already forged relationships to benefit our district."Sonja Smith

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Sonja is a firm believer in the power of collaboration. From neighborhood associations to businesses to City Hall, she knows that we all need to work together to move Birmingham forward.

<h3>Fighting for Our Community</h3>These are some of the top issues our campaign is focused on. Learn more about our issues <a href="/issues" target="" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">here</a>.

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"Strong students make strong communities. From teaching in the classroom to serving 8 years on the Birmingham Board of Education, I will remain devoted to our community on City Council"Sonja Smith

<h2>Sonja's Story</h2><img src="https://run.imgix.net/7d230bfa-f034-40e7-8d2d-1974506d71a2/0075d9b3-c490-403a-a084-9a992c1ecc30/0075d9b3-c490-403a-a084-9a992c1ecc30.jpeg?ixlib=js-3.8.0&amp;bri=0&amp;con=0&amp;sat=0&amp;high=0&amp;shad=0&amp;usm=0&amp;rect=0%2C0%2C3024%2C4032&amp;w=1500" alt="Portrait of candidate smiling as she takes an oath of office with one hand raised" caption="" align="right" alignwidth="40" tiltdirection="left" variant="framed">With 8 years of service on the Birmingham Board of Education, Sonja Smith is a dynamic leader with extensive experience in healthcare, education, and community service. She was elected to the Birmingham Board of Education in 2017 and re-elected in 2021. She currently serves as the Director for the UAB Lifespan Comprehensive Sickle Cell Center, where she leads efforts to improve care and research for individuals living with sickle cell.Sonja’s academic journey began with degrees in music from Birmingham-Southern College and Louisiana State University. After graduating from LSU, she taught at both the high school and junior college levels in Chicago, developing a strong foundation in leadership and education.Upon returning to Birmingham, Sonja transitioned into the non-profit and public service sectors, contributing her expertise at AIDS Alabama and the City of Birmingham. With the launch of the Affordable Care Act, she successfully managed the state’s largest federally funded navigator grant, demonstrating her capacity to oversee complex, large-scale initiatives.In addition to her work in healthcare and public service, Sonja has made significant contributions to public education. As the District 8 Birmingham Board of Education Representative, she collaborated with district leaders in Harvard’s Public Education Leadership Project to enhance student performance in public schools. During her first term on the Board, she chaired the Policy and Superintendent Evaluation Committees, served on both the Calendar and Bush Hills STEAM Academy Transition Committees, and was honored as a Master 4 Level School Board Member by the Alabama Association of School Boards for her commitment to continuous learning. In recognition of her leadership in the city, Sonja was selected as a member of the 2022 Leadership Birmingham class.Sonja is the daughter of Mark and Sundra Smith and values time with loved ones. In her spare time, she plays tennis, tends to her garden, and loves discovering new and interesting restaurants. She also shares her musical talents as the pianist at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church.

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By using this website, you agree that this privacy policy governs your use of the website.<h3>Updates to our privacy policy</h3>From time to time, we may update this privacy policy if we make changes to our practices or to our website. Anytime we revise this policy, we will update the contents of this page and the date at the top of this page. Your continued use of the website following such changes affirms your agreement to any changes we make to this privacy policy with regard to information collected from you in the past and in the future.<h3>How we use your information</h3>When you sign up on our website:&nbsp;we may ask you to provide contact information including your name, address, telephone number and e-mail address. We may use your email address to send you information about Sonja Smith's campaign as well as respond to your requests for information or services. We may use your email address, phone number, and/or mailing address to invite you to events and activities, ask you for contributions, or contact you for other purposes.When you make a request through the website:&nbsp;we may be required to disclose personal information in order to carry out your requests when you use the site. For example, we may share personal information with third parties as necessary to complete a donation transaction, to deliver an e-mail to someone you have identified, or to deliver information, products or other materials to you.We may use your information to maintain and improve this website. We may combine it with information from third-party sources in order to provide you with more relevant content on our website and other websites you visit. 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For information on our third-party service providers and partners and their data practices, please contact the campaign at&nbsp;<a href="mailto:votesonjasmith@gmail.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">voteSonjaSmith@gmail.com</a>.In addition, we may release personal information when it is necessary for us to provide it to our attorneys, accountants, regulators, auditors or other advisors; or when we believe release is necessary to comply with the law (e.g., a lawful subpoena); to protect our rights or property; to protect our donors and supporters from fraudulent, abusive, or unlawful conduct; or if we reasonably believe that an emergency involving immediate danger of death or serious physical injury to any person requires disclosure of communications or justifies disclosure of records without delay.We may also share your information outside of our campaign for other purposes if you authorize us to do so.<ul><li>The above excludes text messaging originator opt-in data and consent; this information will not be shared with any third parties.</li></ul><h3>Network and information security</h3>Our campaign uses a variety of physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards to guard your personal information. For example, we use commercially reasonable tools and techniques to protect against unauthorized access to our systems. We work to protect the security of your personal information by using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) software, which encrypts information you input and allows you to view your information securely. We store the personal information we collect from you behind a secure firewall and place the transaction site on a secure server. Our servers are located in a locked, secure environment. Also, we restrict access to personal information about you to those employees and contractors who need to know that information to provide services to you.Although we make good faith efforts to store information collected by this website in a secure operating environment, no data sent over the internet can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. As a result, while we strive to protect your information, we cannot guarantee the security of any information you send to us or receive from us online. We have no control over the security of other sites on the Internet you might visit, interact with, or from which you buy products or services. We encourage all website visitors to use secure data practices, including using strong passwords, storing passwords securely, maintaining up-to-date software, and using a firewall. We are not responsible for circumvention of any privacy settings or security measures contained on this website.<h3>Cookies, web beacons, IP addresses and log files</h3>CookiesA “cookie” is a tiny text file that is stored on your computer by a website. Our website uses a cookie for measuring aggregate web statistics, including number of monthly visitors, number of repeat visitors, most popular webpages and other information. We may use cookies to tailor your experience on our site according to the preferences you have specified, and/or to maintain data that you provide for online activities so you will not need to resubmit certain information. 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Please note that these third parties’ privacy policies may differ from ours; we encourage you to read the privacy policies and review the practices of all websites you visit before providing them with information.Our campaign does not endorse any third-party websites or pages, the services or products they describe or offer, or any of the content they contain. At all times, we seek to protect the integrity of our website and we welcome any feedback about SonjaSmith.com&nbsp;and websites and services linked to it.<h3>Your choices</h3>Email subscription:&nbsp;If you submit your email address anywhere on this website, your email address may be added to the Sonja Smith campaign email list and our service providers’ or partners’ email list(s). You will receive periodic updates from Sonja Smith's campaign by email. You may opt out of receiving future information via email by using the “unsubscribe” link included in each email. Please allow us a reasonable period of time to fulfill your request to unsubscribe, as some planned emails may already be in process.Disabling Cookies: Most Web browsers are set to accept cookies by default.&nbsp;The “Help” tab of most browsers will tell you how to prevent your browser from accepting cookies, how to have the browser notify you when you receive cookies, and how to disable cookies. Please note that if you reject or block cookies, it may affect your ability to access some of the features and content of our website. 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If you prefer to opt out of the use of third-party cookies on our website that may be used to obtain this information, you can do so by visiting the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.networkadvertising.org/choices/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Network Advertising Initiative opt out page</a>.<h3>Notice for parents</h3>We strongly encourage parents and guardians to supervise their children’s online activities and talk to their children about keeping their personal information safe and secure.Our campaign does not knowingly collect, use or distribute personally identifiable information from children under age 13. To respect the privacy of children and to comply with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, children under the age of 13 should not provide any personal information on our website.If we learn we have collected or received personal information from a child under 13, we will delete that information as soon as reasonably possible. If you have questions or concerns about your child’s information, or if you believe we might have collected any information from or about a child under 13, please contact us at&nbsp;<a href="mailto:votesonjasmith@gmail.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">votesonjasmith@gmail.com</a><h3>Your California privacy rights</h3>California Civil Code Section § 1798.83 allows website visitors who are California residents to request certain information regarding our disclosure of personal information to third parties for marketing purposes. To make such a request, please send an e-mail to&nbsp;<a href="mailto:votesonjasmith@gmail.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">votesonjasmith@gmail.com. </a>Like many other websites and online services,&nbsp;SonjaSmith.com&nbsp;does not currently alter its practices when it receives Do Not Track signals because there is no consensus among industry participants as to what “Do Not Track” means in this context. Learn more at the&nbsp;<a href="https://allaboutdnt.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">“Do Not Track” website.</a><h3>Visiting our site from outside the United States</h3>If you are visiting our website from outside of the United States, please be aware that your information may be transferred to, stored or processed in the United States, where our servers are located and our central database is operated. United States data protection laws may differ from those in your country. By using our site, you understand that your information may be transferred to our facilities and those third parties with whom we share it as described in this privacy policy.<h3>Contacting us about privacy</h3>If you have any questions, comments or concerns about our privacy policy or our data practices, or if you have corrections to the information we have collected from you online, please send us an email at&nbsp;<a href="mailto:votesonjasmith@gmail.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">votesonjasmith@gmail.com</a> or contact us at PO Box 3867 Birmingham, AL 35208.

<h2>How to handle donations on your website</h2>Run does not process donations directly on our platform, as is standard with most political and advocacy sites. Campaigns are often required to comply with reporting requirements, donation limits, and other regulations, so using a donation processor that specializes in serving campaigns is generally a good idea. Sign up with a donation processor and then on your Pages sidebar, click the Link icon on the Donate page and add the link to your donation page. Some common options for donation processing include:<ul><li><a href="https://secure.actblue.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">ActBlue</a></li><li><a href="https://www.campaigndeputy.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Campaign Deputy</a> </li><li><a href="https://goodchange.app/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">GoodChange</a></li><li><a href="https://numero.ai/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Numero</a></li></ul>

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I am passionate about cultivating a thriving small business ecosystem. I will support existing small businesses in realizing their full potential while we work together to nurture new ventures. By sharing resources, offering strategic guidance, and showcasing local entrepreneurship, we can create an environment where innovation flourishes and economic opportunities abound for all.

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I believe in the power of collaboration to build strong, vibrant communities. I am dedicated to supporting local neighborhood associations in achieving their goals and driving innovative growth. Together, we will explore sustainable strategies that not only stabilize our neighborhoods but also enhance their unique character, creating safer and more connected environments for everyone.

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Together, we will create dynamic opportunities for students to engage with professionals from diverse industries and gain real-world insights. By fostering these collaborations, we can provide hands-on experiences and mentorship that inspires creativity and open doors to new possibilities, preparing the next generation for success in an ever-evolving economy.

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