GPS Executive Director Announcement

Girls Play Sports is thrilled to announce that we have named Sarah Ghantous Stein to the position of Executive Director, effective July 15, 2020. Sarah brings an impressive track record of getting things done as a leader and an innovator. Most recently, she helped grow and transform Curt’s Cafe into multiple locations and raised almost $1 million as the Development Director. Prior to her career in non-profit work, Sarah was in pharmaceutical sales and launched products like Lunesta. She has extensive experience planning fundraising events, grant writing, working with budgets, and developing and implementing a strategic plan.

Sarah will be responsible for creating and implementing a strategic plan, oversight of fundraising and communications, as well as day-day operations.

For the past 10+ years, Sarah has dedicated herself to leading non-profit volunteer organizations in Evanston to support our youth. She has served on the Girls Play Sports Board of Directors, President of the Evanston Township High School Boosters, started Girls on the Run chapter at Walker Elementary, co-chaired the annual fundraiser for Foundation 65, and has led multiple fundraisers on behalf of the Woman’s Club of Evanston. Sarah’s superior skills in global thinking, planning, organization and passion have led to many great successes for the non-profits she has worked with.

Sarah is taking the helm from our original Executive Director, Megan Livatino who brought our co-founders’, Chris Livatino and Liz Brieva, vision to life. Sarah is looking forward to working with the experienced staff at Girls Play Sports to grow the organization and expand programming to other communities with a focus on reaching underserved youth. Sarah did not play team sports growing up as there were not many opportunities for girls to get involved at a young age. She passionately believes that it is something that all girls should get to experience during their youth.

Sarah’s daughter Emma dabbled in many different sports during her youth, was a Girls Play Sports leader and is a NCAA DI water polo player at Villanova. Sarah has a B.S. from Boston University and a certificate in Grant Writing from DePaul University.

Welcome Sarah!