Afsaneh Zaeri’s parents raised her in the Baha’i faith. They fled Iran more than 30 years ago, escaping religious persecution. They later met one another in the United States. Sharing similar backgrounds and experiences, they married, and settled in the Kansas City, Missouri area.

Zaeri was raised in the Northland, but she graduated from the Lee’s Summit School District. She left to attend Drake University where she studied magazine journalism and international relations.

After getting her degree, she spent a year volunteering, and it had a deep impact on her.

“Once you make connections with people, you feel like you need to stay involved,” Zaeri said.

For this reason, when she returned to Kansas City in 2013, she was looking for a community where she could be intentional about building relationships.

“Northeast felt like ‘hope,’” she said, which is why she moved into the Scarritt Renaissance neighborhood.

She became an “animator” for the Baha’i faith, and, through a partnership with the North-East Library, she led a junior youth spiritual empowerment program. The program was open to high school juniors of all faiths, and it offered them messages of hope over despair.

“Altruism needs to be channeled into meaningful service in the community,” Zaeri said. “I’m a transplant; I’m not from the neighborhood, but I claim it as my own. I understand the mentality for some kids to want to escape this neighborhood, but I really want to inspire them to want to make an impact on their childhood community.”

Now, Zaeri is seeing young adults that she once mentored through the Junior Youth Spiritual Empowerment Program take on leadership roles within the community, and she said it is inspiring.

“If you’re committed to community building in any sense, you can’t just leave,” she said.

Zaeri also admits that she loves Frutopia and eats there “way too often,” but later adds that it should be universally understood that there is no such thing as “too much Frutopia.”

The next time you’re eating paletas on Independence Avenue, say hi to Zaeri if you see her.