Building for others.

5 Steps to Five supports early childhood education and families in the Port Chester and Rye communities. I started volunteering there in eighth grade.

The longer I stayed, the more I understood how much of the work happened on paper — attendance, family information, records that staff needed every single day. It seemed like something software could make easier.

So I taught myself what I needed to build it: Swift, SwiftUI and Firebase. I built a custom attendance and family-records application, and the organization adopted it as part of its daily operations. I kept volunteering, and in September 2025 I joined the paid staff.

Along the way I led three Spanish-language technology workshops for immigrant families — on AI and its uses, screen-time management, and QR codes.

Working directly with families changed how I think about building anything. The best feature isn't the clever one — it's the one that fits into someone's morning without friction.