Deneen Donnley is proud of where she comes from. Raised by a single mother, Donnley was born in Harlem and moved to the Bronx at age 5. Now, she’s the lead lawyer with Con Edison.

She’s also on the board of Girls Inc., a nonprofit organization that works with high school girls on college and career readiness, including 11th and 12th graders at Central Park East High School in Harlem. 

“We moved to south Bronx and then up to Co-Op City when it opened in 1970. I really loved living there,” Donnley said while meeting with Girls Inc. students at the school. 

Donnley is being honored for her achievements, as well as her contribution to the advancement of women in the legal profession. This week, she won the Charlotte E. Ray award, named after the first Black female lawyer in the U.S.

The Minority Corporate Counsel Association is behind the award, and champions professional diversity in law.

Donnley is a product of the New York City public school system, having attended elementary, middle and high school at Co-Op City. She says she sees herself in some of the students at Central Park East High School. 

“When I think about the support and encouragement that I had, I want to be there to support other young women in particular as they are considering what they can do in life, how they can grow in life,” Donnley said.

Like 16-year-old Mariama Touray, who’s a junior at the school.

“That fact that she was a woman of color, and now that she’s in a really high position, and it’s just so [admirable] to see someone who overcame so many things to get to the place that she is right now, and I think that’s personally a big inspiration for me, because I wanna go into law,” Touray said.

Recently, Donnley took NY1 back to Co-Op City to visit her 91-year-old mother who still lives there, in the apartment where Donnley grew up.

“At a very young age, I could walk myself to school, because there were no streets to be crossed, which was really great, and this literally was the path that I took to school,” said Donnley as she and her mother walked hand in hand, tracing her childhood steps.

Donnley didn’t have lawyers in her life growing up. Her mother Eleanor worked as a correction officer for the city, sometimes at night, and says she left the schoolwork up to her daughter. But she always made sure she had access to books.

“Before we moved to Co-Op City, there was library in the projects, and I would take her to the library. At 4 years old she could write her name, so she had a library card,” Eleanor Donnley said.

Deneen Donnley says her mother made her believe anything was possible. She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and Fordham Law School.

“She always encouraged me when it came to my education, and told me that I could do anything and be anything that I wanted to be,” she said.

Co-Op City isn’t just home to Donnley’s mother — it’s also home to her childhood favorites.

“This pizza shop has been here since I moved here. It is my favorite pizza shop in New York City,” Donnley said.

Donnley said the Co-Op community, including the slice that once was 50 cents, is the best place she could have grown up.

“Co-Op City was my home, my playground, my school, my entertainment, my source of friendship and my family,” she said.