Miguel Blancarte Jr. with Ivonne Sambolin, the Director of Community Engagement at the Chicago Department of Public Health, at a Covid-19 testing site in Chicago's Humboldt Park neighborhood. Photo courtesy of Mr. Blancarte.
In 2020, Miguel Blancarte Jr. became the director of Covid-19 Response and Community Outreach at Esperanza Health Centers in Chicago, Ill. The organization’s five sites provide bilingual health services to primarily minority communities irrespective of immigration status or economic situation. Since the onset of the pandemic, Mr. Blancarte has been instrumental in organizing Esperanza’s efforts to aid the city’s residents.
Mr. Blancarte attended Cristo Rey Jesuit High School on the Lower West Side of Chicago, the founding school in the Cristo Rey Network of affiliated college preparatory institutions. The Cristo Rey Network created a corporate work study program that gives students experience in corporate environments. On five school days a month, students work an entry-level job at organizations like American Express, HarperCollins, JPMorgan Chase and others. Mr. Blancarte credits the program for much of his continued success. He received his B.A. in political science from Brown University in 2009 and graduated from Georgetown University with a joint M.B.A. and M.S.F.S. in international business and policy events in 2018.