Nickeya Allen and Amanda Carrasquillo met while attending a protest over the death of Eric Garner in 2014.
"I've never, like, been an activist, where I go out on the streets, chanting and stuff like that. It's never [been] like that," Carrasquillo said.
The experience changed both women and compelled them to do more for others on the North Shore.
"We wanted to focus on definitely changing the perception about our community, and what better way to do that than to make sure that we are providing support to the women of our community," Allen said.
So, the women created the group Her'Storical Gems.
"We’ve been making our own history. We didn’t want to call it HIS story. We wanted to be HER story. So Her’Storical Gems, and we're all gems, and that's how we treat one another, with respect," Allen said.
The support group is now 30 members strong and promotes female entrepreneurs, leaders and business owners on Staten Island.
"We want to help you. We want to promote you we want to take our business cards everywhere we go," Allen said.
The group's efforts may be grassroots right now, but the founders are looking to take Her'storical Gems to another level in the future.
"Eventually, we want to provide financial services as a nonprofit. We can pool in state funds or city funds and make sure it's allocated specifically towards women," Allen said.
For now, the women are happy with what they've achieved.
"At least now, we have a group we can go to. We can all rely on each other. We can always go for that emotional, mental support," Carrasquillo said. "Before, it wasn't like that. We just had ourselves."
"We're not professional therapists or anything, but it's exciting to be that foundation," Allen said.