On August 14th, more than 75 community organizers and advocates attended the Women & Working Families Summit, hosted by OFA and the Center for American Progress Action Fund at the Community Organizing Institute at OFA headquarters in Chicago.
Kate Black from American Women kicked off the summit with a discussion of the messaging and strategy behind the efforts to secure economic opportunities for women, like equal pay and raising the minimum wage.
Monique Brunson Jones from the Chicago Foundation for Women moderated a riveting panel featuring four experts with four different perspectives. Wendy Pollack (Sargent Shriver National Center on Policy Law) updated folks on progress we’re seeing in Illinois; Ellen-Blair Chube of Ariel Investments spoke as an executive of a company that values workplace policies that support women and working families; Allison Zelman (Center for American Progress), brought a national policy perspective to the conversation; and Traci Coney, a home health care worker, told her personal story about struggling to make ends meet while caring for her sister.
The evening was capped by our special guest speaker, Tina Tchen, the executive director of the White House Council on Women & Girls, and chief of staff to First Lady Michelle Obama. She talked about how thrilled she was to be home to Chicago to discuss some of the key takeaways from the White House Summit on Working Families and the Fair Shot Summit, which were held earlier this year in Washington.
“These are broad-based economic issues,” Tina said. “These are not just individual issues.” That’s why we will continue to fight to support working families.
It was an honor for OFA to host so many members of the progressive community and supporters who care deeply about how we can to make progress for women and working families.
