2024 Business Women Awards
ACHIEVEMENT HONOREE: Alison Bologna
Shri Studio Inc. founder and owner
ALISON BOLOGNA’S GOAL for Shri Studio Inc.’s new home is to be “self-sustaining.”
Bologna launched the yoga studio in 2010 in an empty downtown Pawtucket storefront, offering low-cost and free classes to students who didn’t have access to yoga. Back in August, she marked the official grand opening of the new 15,000-square-foot Shri headquarters in the Conant Thread District in Pawtucket.
In Sanskrit, the loose translation of “shri” is bringing light. Based on that guiding principle, Bologna founded Shri Service Corps in 2012. The nonprofit underwrites free yoga outreach programs to many in the Shri community, from adults and children with developmental and intellectual disabilities to veterans, shelter residents, the elderly and people in recovery.
Today, Shri funds more than 100 monthly yoga classes and, with 40 certified instructors, serves more than 8,500 students annually. Bologna has a goal of doubling that number. An offshoot, Shri Bark healthy snacks, provides funding while feeding 40,000 public school students each month.
Bologna, who grew up in San Diego, discovered yoga’s benefits after she graduated with a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University. She also took on another challenge: on-air reporting. There was just one hurdle – she had virtually no experience. But in 2002, WJAR-TV NBC 10 had an opening for reporters. She came to Rhode Island to apply and work for two weeks.
After the move to Rhode Island, Bologna was reporting nights, which freed time to take yoga classes. When the studio offered teacher training, she jumped in, leading sessions in commercial studios.
“It was fine,” she said, “but I always wanted to do something adaptive. My younger sister, who’s disabled, has influenced me my whole life, so I gave it a try. I found cheap space and did the math. I realized I wasn’t going to quit my day job. I never opened Shri to make a living. It’s always been a passion project.”
She’d also always wanted to design a building and this combination of opportunities motivated the move to 390 Pine St. in Pawtucket, a 15,000-square-foot, two-story structure that once served as the offices of the now-defunct Conant Thread Co. “We’d outgrown three leased spaces,” Bologna said.
Although she took a four-year detour to report at a Boston TV station, Bologna never moved out of Rhode Island and returned to WJAR-TV in 2010. She now co-anchors the early-morning shift.