“This campaign is doing what it was founded to do: help mothers and families get out of poverty. That’s a dream come true.”

Meet Rosalva! Rosalva came into community organizing and nonprofit work through West Town United Leadership in 1987, spending nearly a decade there before meeting COFI. Once she met COFI and the trainers, she said she found a model that matched her belief that parents, especially mothers, have the solutions to the biggest challenges in their communities.

“Oftentimes, mothers take care of their families first and not themself,” she said. “But what I liked about the model is how it starts focusing on yourself and your goals. Once you can take care of yourself first, you can do more for your family.” 

With COFI, Rosalva threw herself into the parent-led work. At Peabody Elementary, she helped recruit 60 parents into COFI training. When the city first mentioned the possibility of closing it, she and other parents fought to keep it open. It eventually closed, but the parents didn’t stop!

Her determination and COFI training led her and parents like Ms. Rose to start a new POWER-PAC IL campaign that they called the Stepping Out of Poverty Campaign. It was rooted in one question she couldn’t stop asking herself: “Why is it so hard for some of us to save money and get ahead?” 

Rosalva and the parents knew there was a systemic problem. There were laws and policies designed to keep them in cycles of poverty and to financially penalize them when they didn’t have the money in the first place, as they juggled paying for essentials like food, rent, children’s clothing, and more. When someone’s budget is stretched thin, how do you ever save for your child’s future?

The campaign got to work, and one of Rosalva’s proudest wins was the Bright Start college savings program. Governor Quinn signed it in the COFI office, and the legislation was significant because it allowed families to open savings accounts for their children. The government would also match what parents put in. Rosalva said her daughter still has that account for her children. 

The parent-led campaign took on predatory payroll card fees and won historic reforms to Chicago’s fines and fees system, including ending driver’s license suspensions for unpaid parking tickets, reducing down payment requirements to pay ticket debt, and stopping the doubling of fines for city sticker violations. Most recently, they won a statewide Child Tax Credit for parents and have been pushing for guaranteed income options.

“This campaign is doing what it was founded to do – helping mothers and families get out of poverty,” she said. “That’s a dream come true.”