Our Team

Staff

Nikki Shults, Executive Director

Nikki grew up in a small town in Connecticut and moved to Boston in 2014. Before joining Everyday Boston, she worked as the Executive Director of Little Brothers - Friends of the Elderly (LBFE), a nonprofit dedicated to relieving isolation and loneliness among older adults. Through her work in the Peace Corps, LBFE, AARP MA’s Coalition to Build Community and End Loneliness, and other personal endeavors in her community, Nikki has focused on helping others find joy in human connection. She brings her commitment to promoting social health and well being along with her organizational management skills to EB to amplify its already powerful impact throughout the city. Nikki enjoys outdoor sports, card and board games, crochet and the Red Sox.
Email her at: nikki@everydayboston.org

Cara Solomon, Founder, Creative Director

Cara was raised in Wayland and now lives in Jamaica Plain. She came up with the idea for Everyday Boston based on conversations with people who live or grew up in the city, and her own experiences as a reporter for The Seattle Times and the Hartford Courant. A graduate of the University of Michigan and Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, Cara teaches EB’s workshops, coaches story ambassadors in interviewing, and edits stories on the site. She also freelances as a journalist. Most recently, she worked as Communications Manager for the Human Rights Program at Harvard Law School. She is a die-hard fan of Dunks, fried clams, and talking to strangers on the street.
Email her at: cara@everydayboston.org

JADIRAH ORTIZ, PROGRAM COORDINATOR

Jadirah is an experienced entrepreneur and community leader with a passion for building connections and fostering personal development. As Program Coordinator at Everyday Boston, she helps manage and scale community programs aimed at bridging divides through storytelling and relationship building. With a strong background in project management, volunteer coordination, and organizational growth, Jadirah thrives on creating inclusive spaces where people of all backgrounds can connect. She is committed to lifelong learning, advancing her skills, and aspiring to establish a nonprofit focused on empowering adolescents and young adults.
Email her at: jadirah@everydayboston.org

CHERYL HARDING, STRATEGIC ADVISOR

A lifelong community advocate, Cheryl seeks to build trust between Bostonians and the institutions that serve them, and to bridge perceived differences across demographics and generations so we can work together to make the city a better place for all. She has served in a range of roles, from Founder of the nonprofit From Roots to Wings, which supported grandparents raising their grandchildren, to Field Director for Attorney General Andrea Campbell’s campaign. At Everyday Boston, Cheryl is leading a community visioning process for Storytelling to Build Medical Trust, an NIH-funded learning series that brings healthcare providers and BIPOC community members together to focus on their shared humanity and practice their people skills.
Email her at: cheryl@everydayboston.org

Che Pope, Fellow, The Bridge Project

Che was raised in Mattapan by a single hard working mother who instilled in him qualities of education and earnestness. Despite her love, the lure of the streets was more enticing and he ended up incarcerated at 17. In prison, Che participated in several programs that helped him build his character, and since his release, he has focused on giving back to the community. Today he works with Teen Empowerment as a youth mentor, is an active member of YardTime, and has become a Fellow with Everyday Boston’s Bridge Project, where he specializes in connecting with neighbors at Conversation Stations. Che loves spending time with his grandchildren, takes inspiration from the stories of others, and is writing a memoir he plans to publish this year.

STephen Pina, Street Team Manager

Steve’s story is one of resilience and determination. Wrongfully convicted in 1996, he spent 28 years in prison before new evidence led to his release in 2022. Since then, through the Exoneree Network and his own social enterprise business, Never Not Working, Steve has been a strong advocate for those who have been wrongfully convicted. He’s also active member of YardTime, the Haley House’s LIFT program, and Everyday Boston’s Bridge Project. As Street Team manager, Steve is leading the organization’s efforts to connect neighbors across the city through short interviews on the street. Despite not yet being formally exonerated, Steve remains steadfast in his pursuit of justice, driven by the desire to clear his name for the sake of his family and loved ones.

Advisory Board
Featured
Natanja Craig Oquendo
Natanja Craig Oquendo

Guided by the motto “Nothing about us without us,” Natanja brings an unwavering passion for community solutions, her unique lived experience, and over 20 years of nonprofit and philanthropic expertise to her work as Executive Director of the Boston Women’s Fund. At a young age, she was inspired by activists defending her community from systemic injustice. Their success spurred her strong belief in grassroots organizations’ power to drive change. Committed to creating spaces for women of color, Natanja co-founded the Women’s Leadership Circle, a program uniquely designed to tackle the impacts of isolation and white supremacy culture in the workplace. She enjoys singing 80s love songs at karaoke, traveling, and being a mother and grandmother to her three daughters, two sons, and granddaughter Mila, all of which she could not do without her loving husband Jason.

George Powell, Founding Story Ambassador
George Powell, Founding Story Ambassador

One of Everyday Boston’s founding story ambassadors, George is a screenplay writer who was born in the West Indies and raised in Roxbury, where he bought his first pair of shell toe Adidas with money he earned working with his father.

A graduate of Boston High School, he took to writing stories and screenplays in prison, and later earned his certificate in the screenwriting program at Emerson College. With that training, he completed a short documentary about Span Inc, the city’s oldest re-entry program, which he considers a major influence in his life.

George co-wrote the script for a movie, The Walk, which was released in theaters in 2022. The idea for the movie came to him after a conversation he had through Everyday Boston.

Armand Coleman
Armand Coleman

Armand is the Executive Director of Transformational Prison Project, where he is also a lead facilitator and circle keeper. A former coordinator of Everyday Boston’s Bridge Project, Armand has nearly a decade of experience developing and leading Restorative Justice (RJ) programming. While incarcerated, he founded the Youthful Offender Coalition for those who committed their crime under age 18 and Men Exploring Their Own Obstacles, which addresses toxic masculinity, rape culture, and sexism. In addition to his work with TPP, Armand leads restorative justice circles and mentor’s youth through Roxbury District Court's CHOICE Program and is Volunteer Development and Community Outreach Coordinator at Communities for Restorative Justice. He is also a member of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Roundtable on Racial Disparities in Massachusetts Courts and facilitates circles for first year law students at Harvard Law School.

Carmen Pola, Founding Story Ambassador
Carmen Pola, Founding Story Ambassador

Carmen was born in Puerto Rico and raised in California, where she worked as a hairdresser before becoming an community organizer. She moved to Boston in the 1970s, settled in Mission Hill, and has been involved in issues of housing, education and civil rights ever since. She was the first Hispanic to run for elected office in Massachusetts and opened the doors for other Hispanics to challenge the system and run for office. At 78, she is a co-founder of the Mission Hill Senior Legacy Project, an effort to create unity among seniors of all races.

Gabriela Follett, Founding Story Ambassador
Gabriela Follett, Founding Story Ambassador

Gabriela (Gabbie) was born and raised in Dorchester (Ashmont area). She grew up playing softball at Town Field in Fields Corner and drinking raspberry slush puppies at Ashmont Market with her brother and sisters. She studied Environmental Studies with a focus on food justice and theater at the University of Vermont. She enjoys a good pun and according to her abuelita, she also can cook the best arepas.

Rochelle Levy-Christopher
Rochelle Levy-Christopher

Rochelle was raised in Harlem, NY and moved to Boston as a young adult. She is the founder and CEO of The Black Literacy and Arts Collaborative Project; a published poet; a graphic designer; and a chronic entrepreneur who is currently working on her MBA at Southern New Hampshire University. Dedicated to “Black Excellence” ALWAYS, Rochelle has spent a majority of her life teaching and mentoring youth in underserved communities. Her goal is to create access and equity for BIPOC while also empowering and inspiring Black womxn across the globe to walk in their purpose, speak their truth, and model authentic sisterhood for generations to come.

John Davidow
John Davidow

John Davidow is a principal at Media Bridge and a broadcast journalist with more than 20 years of local, national and international news and news management experience. Most recently, he was Managing Editor, Digital, at WBUR. He spent most of his journalism career in commercial television, at WBEZ and WCVB, before moving to public radio. Prior to that, he was a middle school history teacher.

Nish Acharya
Nish Acharya

Nish Acharya advises leading universities, governments, foundations and companies to assist them with innovation, entrepreneurship and philanthropic strategies. He’s also a Senior Fellow with the Center for American Progress, a contributor to Forbes and the author of the “The India-US Partnership: $1 Trillion By 2030” by Oxford University Press. Nish previously served as Director of Innovation & Entrepreneurship and Senior Advisor to the Secretary of Commerce for the Obama White House, as Executive Director of the Deshpande Foundation, and Bill Clinton’s White House. A graduate of Northeastern and George Washington Universities, in his free time Nish gets involved in local politics, enjoys outdoor activities with his sons, and recently completed his first half marathon.

Karen Osarenkhoe
Karen Osarenkhoe

Karen was born and raised in East Boston, the city her paternal grandmother immigrated to from Italy in the early 1900’s. From her earliest years, Karen was surrounded by children and thrived on watching them master skills and flourish to their fullest potential. This led her to the path of teaching after graduating from Lesley College with a BS in Early Childhood Education. She has spent the majority of her career working with children and families in East Boston. Previously a Program Administrator at the YMCA, she is currently a Coach/Mentor at ABCD Head Start and an adjunct professor at Urban College of Boston. Karen is passionate about ensuring all children have a strong foundation in social emotional learning, which is proven to improve academic success. She is also a proud mother of one daughter, Christina, and enjoys spending her time scrapbooking experiences and writing/journaling her life’s adventure so far!

Jacqui Banaszynski
Jacqui Banaszynski

Jacqui Banaszynski is an emerita professor at the Missouri School of Journalism, faculty fellow at the world-renowned Poynter Institute and editor of Nieman Storyboard, a site devoted to the art and craft of nonfiction storytelling. While a reporter at the St. Paul (Minnesota) Pioneer Press, her series “AIDS in the Heartland” won the 1988 Pulitzer Prize in feature writing. She was a finalist for the 1986 Pulitzer in international reporting for coverage of the Ethiopian famine, won the nation’s top deadline sports reporting award for coverage of the 1988 Olympics and is in the Society of Features Journalism Hall of Fame. She grew up in a small farm village in Wisconsin and remains passionate about cheese curds, the Green Bay Packers and Lake Superior. Now based in Seattle, she divides her time between her front porch at home and an airplane to somewhere. Either way, you’ll find her with a book in hand.

Board of Directors
Featured
Malcolm Mayfield
Malcolm Mayfield

Malcolm moved to Boston amidst the first COVID Summer seeking change and opportunity in our great city. As a Board Member of Everyday Boston, he is dedicated to fostering understanding, impact, perspective through storytelling and collaborative engagement.

With an educational background in political science and emergency management, Malcolm focuses on creating inclusive and transformative spaces that transcend the classical paradigms of both communication and leadership, especially where dialogue among diverse voices is at the forefront. Malcolm has made significant contributions to community service, such as planning for the deployment of the nation’s Strategic National Vaccine Stockpile, diffusing innovation spaces at MIT, and elevating women of color in virtual business spaces. He now brings that experience to Everyday Boston seeking to develop solutions that enhance communication, equity, and visibility for our community’s most vulnerable populations.

Beyond his professional work, Malcolm is committed to mentoring future leaders, staying up to date on the political landscape, cooking 🧑‍🍳, and being loved by his longtime cat companion, Lelouch (AKA, "HEY").

Pallavi Singh
Pallavi Singh

Pallavi was born in England and raised in the Boston area, where she started her first company while attending Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Her non-profit company, designed to get quality, reused books in the hands of underserved children, lasted only a few years but set Pallavi on her path of entrepreneurship.

She later founded Beacon Innovation Group to revolutionize the way Intellectual Property attorneys use research to make decisions on licensing, litigation and novel innovations. She sold Beacon to Anaqua, a Boston-based IP software company, and worked on the Product team to integrate their service solutions into Anaqua’s software platforms.

A longtime resident of Back Bay, Pallavi now lives in Canton, and spends her free time cooking, mentoring founders, and teaching entrepreneurship to teens.

Lili Ibara
Lili Ibara

Lili is originally from Dartmouth, Mass, and now lives in Jamaica Plain (which her relatives in Dartmouth and New Bedford insist is really far away). Her career focus has been social work and law, with a special interest in the combination of law and community organizing.

Currently Assistant Director for ARPA Implementation in the Mayor's Office of Housing, Lili was previously Deputy Director of Greater Boston Legal Services, where she earlier worked as a staff attorney advocating on behalf of low-wage immigrant workers. She also practiced in housing, where she represented post-foreclosure homeowners in eviction actions in partnership with tenant advocacy group City Life/Vida Urbana. She is a graduate of McGill University, Boston University School of Law, and the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration.

She lives with her spouse and two children and enjoys gardening, running slowly, and making lists.

Darris Jordan
Darris Jordan

Darris is a proud Dorchester resident who works for the City of Boston. He has a background in community engagement and partnership building, which has reminded him again and again of the power of what community can do.

Darris’ passion for service and belief in the power of connection initially drew him to Everyday Boston. He is humbled to be a part of an organization bringing people across the city together to build and strengthen relationships using the power of storytelling: "A table can't stand with no legs- it needs support."

Nina Butler
Nina Butler

A born-again Bostonian and Martha’s Vineyard native, Nina attributes her passion for making personal connections in both her personal and professional life to her neighborly Island roots; it’s a skill that has served her well for the past seven years in the Boston startup scene.

Nina is currently Director of Marketing for regie.ai, a SaaS platform that allows users to create sales and marketing content.

While not riding the startup roller coaster, she loves spending time traveling with her unbearably cute niece and nephew, attending New England sports championship parades and taking in the sun and sea at her favorite local beaches.