Meet Our Team!
Ameya (She/Her) is a social worker who graduated from Columbia University School of Social Work. She majored in policy practice with a minor in law and had a concentration in health, mental health and disabilities. She is a Posse Foundation full tuition scholarship recipient from Middlebury College. There she majored in American Studies, minored in South Asian Studies and had a concentration of film and media studies. She has worked at the NYC Office of Community Affairs, the Smithsonian Museum of American Studies and for Amnesty International. And she has spent seven years fundraising for affordable housing and social justice/arts programs led by and serving black and brown communities. She is a youth organizer under 30 and co-founder/board treasurer of AllinOne Collective, an arts collective that partners with real-estate developers to prevent gentrification and repurpose untraditionally zoned spaces. She was also featured on NY1, in NPR and The Brownstoner. Her projects were also featured in the NYTimes, NowthisNews and NY1.
Brittanee (She/Her) coordinates WANA's EFAP, TEFAP, and HPNAP's grant expenditure, grant contracts, and government compliance with United Way of NYC and Food Bank of NYC. Before WANA, she was a marketing outreach fellow at Brooklyn Hospital. There she assessed the community's need for WIC services and prepared monthly statistical reports about WIC to ensure the hospital's state compliance.
Stephanie (She/Her) is the communications coordinator and now the community outreach manager at WANA. In her role she coordinates our organization’s communications strategy, including developing social media posts on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Stephanie is a bi-lingual tutor at City College of New York, where she has vast experience accommodating diverse needs, which includes everything from helping students apply to competitive post-secondary schools (ex. medical school) to helping students navigate barriers due to language, ability and literacy. Stephanie has over 10 years of personal experience in grassroots organizing and she has launched an online magazine, 433 Magazine, with support from City College of New York. In her work, she seeks to further uplift the narratives of the working class, queer folks, people of color and Black folks in the community. She holds a bachelor's degree in creative writing from City College of New York and finished an urban farming certificate at Farm School
Imani (She/They) develops our advocacy initatives and actions. She utilizes her life coaching skills, a restorative justice lens and a lived history to manage local community service projects like cooking lessons for children, thrift shop organizing and soup kitchen prep. She has a New York City Food Handlers Certificate and is experienced in American Red Cross Adult First Aid/CPR/AED, professional baking and health support services.
Eleana (She/Her) manages our therapeutic/social-emotional learning program for people who reside in the West Harlem community, who are currently receiving some kind of subsidy (including but not limited to SNAP or public housing). She meets with participants bi-weekly for assessment, goal setting, advocacy for options and services, evaluation, and re-setting of goals. Furthermore, she organizes monthly group training, education, and research about wellness, poverty, oppression, and skill-building such as public speaking, use of social media, and community organizing. Eleana operates Eleana Development Center, a counseling center, and holds a master's in counseling. She has four years of experience providing group and individual counseling in schools to children of all age groups, with over ten years of experience in school settings. And she is receiving a certificate in nonprofit management from Molloy College.
Since 1995, Shirrell (She/Her) has been responsible for coordinating on-site logistics for Saturday's street outreach/mobile soup kitchen and supporting on-site programmatic operations at Monday's client choice food pantry. Shirrell coordinates programmatic data, including attendance sheets, client service statistics, and menu logs. Shirrell is an activist against police brutality for the rights of those living with disabilities, and the redistribution of wealth in communities of color. In her advocacy work, she builds on her lived experiences from the 1980s navigating food pantries/SNAP, social security, and housing insecurity. She advocates for better housing, more benefits, and healthcare.
William (He/Him) holds a BA in Social Work and has over 30 years of experience working with homeless services in New York City. His wealth of experience includes direct practice community building in Harlem and studying the various provisions in social services for homeless New Yorkers.
John (He/Him) refugee to left his tyrannical country fearing for his life, came to the US, spent two years in the WANA Shelter Program, and is now looking to give back and help future refugees by working with WANA. He was a Brooklyn Pride Community Center Intern and a Paid Apprentice at Emma's Torch.
