If there’s a spot behind the microphone – whether it’s at a pep rally, debate or school function – New Albany High School senior Sreshta Erravelli will likely be there, and handling the show behind the scenes.
An involved leader and avid participant, Erravelli was recently recognized as the Outstanding Student for the 2025 Delta Awards by the New Albany Chamber of Commerce for her work promoting student engagement and community connections in the school halls and beyond.
Leading by doing
Patrick Gallaway
Erravelli and Dr. Russell at the Delta Luncheon
Drawn to leadership and community building from an early age – a trait she jokingly attributes to nosiness – Erravelli is involved in numerous clubs and organizations.
Now a graduating senior, Erravelli has acquired many leadership roles, including her work as the president of the student council and the New Student Network, and leader of Cypress House for the district’s community house system.
In the halls, Erravelli welcomes new students and encourages others to be active and bring new ideas to the school for student events, engagements and more.
In her junior year, she represented the state of Ohio in national student council meetings, meeting student council members from around the world and learning more about ideas she could bring to New Albany-Plain Local Schools.
Her leadership and commitment extend into the community, working with the City’s IDEA Panel, as well as larger organizations, including Girl Up and Her Best Foot Forward. She uplifts others by helping with events such as New Albany’s Diwali Festival, Girl Up’s annual fashion show and local markets selling beadwork and artisanal goods made by women in Tunisia.
For the past few summers, she has extended her help in Tunisia by traveling there and teaching teen girls about menstrual health, safety and hygiene through Her Best Foot Forward.
“(The program is) just a really unique opportunity, because I’m meant to be a teacher with that. So, it’s cool to see that perspective of things, but it’s also just me talking to teenage girls I feel like are sisters of mine, and I love it,” Erravelli says.
A star nomination
Patrick Gallaway
Delta Luncheon
Ahead of the Delta Luncheon in December, Erravelli was shocked by the news that she had been nominated and won the award.
“I got called down to the office… I went down, and I spoke with Miss. Shaffer, my counselor, and she was so giddy. She was like, ‘You’ve got to hear this. You know, there’s this event coming up. Dr. Russell nominated you.’ And I was just really overwhelmed with gratitude,” Erravelli says.
Dr. Rob Russell, New Albany High School Principal and Erravelli’s nominator, notes that the decision to nominate her was well-supported.
With her widespread involvement in school, along with her propensity for leading and uplifting others, Erravelli’s efforts throughout her high school career resonated with teachers and staff schoolwide when the time came for the Delta Outstanding Student Award nomination.
“We have this conversation about an individual who moves our collective culture in a positive direction, so we talk about sense of belonging. We talk about kindness, dignity and respect, and she is absolutely the definition of those things and representative of our community at really the highest level,” Russell says.
Sreshta Erravelli
Erravelli and friends
His speech about her accumulated a list of her involvement and accomplishments, and kind words about her, including a description of being “joy personified.”
“Having conversations with her peers in avenues that she’s worked in, she is bringing peers in to have conversations. So, although she’s leading a group or appears to be the potential spokesperson, there are a lot of people that are involved in the movement that she’s creating,” says Russell.
With her collaboration skills and ability to bring new ideas to the table, Erravelli has become a pillar for connecting the learning community and the larger community.
Taste of community and beyond
Sreshta Erravelli
As she wraps up her final year with the district, Erravelli has seized the opportunity to meet with other seniors to make their final year great while continuing to elevate student experiences well into the future.
Interested in International Relations and diplomacy post-graduation, her senior seminar project became a way to enhance her skillset by connecting people and uplifting the diversity of New Albany through a cookbook – one full of recipes from immigrant families around the community.
“A career in international relations and diplomacy is literally just bridging strangers and figuring out how I can help them and how to make communities happen, and I knew the best way to highlight that here was to bring out those communities,” Erravelli says.
From interviewing the families about their native cuisine and dining with them, to building relationships with her fellow students and community members, she continues to strengthen her ties with others.
“I think the connecting thread through all of it just has to be people and being able to connect with them,” Erravelli says. “I just can’t get enough of it. It’s so exciting to me because no person is like the other. And every time I think I’ve met the most interesting person ever, I’m proven wrong. I get a story out of everything and everyone I meet.”
Jane Dimel is an assistant editor at CityScene Media Group. Feedback welcome at jdimel@cityscenemediagroup.com.
