John Langdon Cassandra Agredo has grown the soup kitchen at St. Francis Xavier church into the multi-service agency that is Xavier Mission. As the organization’s executive director, Agredo and her team provide an array of services and opportunities to New Yorkers in need. They prefer to be called a “for-impact” instead of a “nonprofit” organization, focusing on things they can change instead of those they can’t. Direct service work has always been a part of Agredo’s life. When she was growing up in Rhode Island, her father worked at the Department of Human Services, and once the first soup kitchen opened, her parents would bring Agredo along while they volunteered. She continued on this path and obtained a bachelor’s and master’s degree in social work from Fordham University. Since then, her passion to enact positive change has shone both through her work at Xavier Mission and Hunger Free America, a national organization set to end domestic hunger, where she’s a board member.