Founder | About Me
Hi, I'm Shivani.
I moved to New York as a teenager, a first-generation immigrant from India, navigating a new country, a new school system, and a new idea of what home could mean. I found that home in Astoria. I have lived here since 2011 and I do not plan on going anywhere.
I am an educator by profession. I spent years at universities building workforce and education pathways for first-generation learners, immigrants, and working adults trying to access opportunity in this city. I believe economic mobility is a community issue, not just a personal one. And I believe neighborhoods are strongest when the people in them have real support and real access to what they need to thrive.
I am also a law student at CUNY, studying public interest law and policy. I went back to school because I want to be useful to my neighbors in a different way. To understand the systems that shape their lives well enough to help change them.
In Astoria I volunteer at the food pantry, support citizenship drives, mentor first-generation students, and show up wherever I can for the people and places that make this neighborhood what it is. One of my favorite places in our community is Socrates Sculpture Park. If you know, you know.
Last year I ran for New York State Assembly in AD36. That campaign gave me the deepest view of this neighborhood I have ever had. And what I kept seeing, everywhere I looked, were women doing extraordinary things without anyone writing it down.
That is why I started this project.