Meet Our President
Background
Born and raised in the United States, Ashley calls both Massachusetts and Florida home. She is a lifelong reader and writer, often snuggled in a blanket, reading Shakespeare and filling notebooks with her thoughts and observations. Ashley is an award-winning poet, published author, and 2025 recipient of the NSHSS's "18 Under 18 Award".
Ashley enjoys teaching others and works as a summer counselor, showing campers how fun learning can be. She serves as a peer leader, tutoring others at her high school, and volunteers with an international English learner in Ukraine. Offering conversation, friendship, and emotional support to a peer impacted by the war through weekly video sessions, Ashley graciously builds an authentic connection across borders.
Ashley's service already exceeds 260 hours through her volunteering at her local newspaper, food pantry, and library, as well as helping children living in homeless shelters and foster homes and providing both prevention programming and peer-to-peer crisis support for teens at risk of suicide.
Ashley enjoys taking courses at the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts, playing the piano and studied perfume in Los Angeles and New York City. Inspired to marry her sense of smell and way with words she built a small online business to share bespoke perfumes and poetry with others, including her self-published book of poetry, "From the Swing".
Ashley is especially fulfilled by the weekly poetry section she curates in her local newspaper as it provides a place of encouragement, allowing everyone to openly express themselves through the poetry they share. She hopes to mirror this small-town success internationally by launching this online community: Across the Verse.
My Vision
"One act of vulnerability (poetry) can have an impact across the globe."
I lead this community to build connections across borders by encouraging others to contribute to our growing collection of poetry written by all different kinds of people from all over the world.