Around Queens: Where Care Becomes Infrastructure with Jonathan Forgash ep. 001

Around Queens is a long-form interview series that explores how people build meaning, systems, and community when the old rules stop working.

Each episode centers on a single conversation with a Queens-based builder, creator, or organizer—not to spotlight titles or résumés, but to understand the moments that changed their direction and the values shaping what they’re building now.

The show looks beyond charity and success narratives to examine care as design, dignity as infrastructure, and quality of life as a measure of progress. While rooted in Queens, these stories speak to a global audience navigating uncertainty, policy shifts, economic pressure, and the search for what actually matters.

Hosted by Luchia Dragosh, Around Queens treats the borough as a lens—not a limit—for understanding how people respond when institutions fall short and humans step in.

Episode One

In the first episode, Luchia sits down with Jonathan Forgash, founder of Queens Together, whose work began with a single, deeply personal request: to cook for a friend undergoing cancer treatment. What started as an act of care evolved into a way of thinking about food, memory, and dignity—and eventually into community-built systems responding to food insecurity, policy failure, and economic strain.

This conversation traces how intimate acts of care can grow into infrastructure, how COVID reshaped the meaning of community support, and why quality of life—not efficiency or scale—has become the guiding value behind Jonathan’s work today.