Chalkbeat

When Englewood community organizer Erica Nanton was out of a job and struggling a few months ago, she didn’t think she would be able to run for the Local School Council at Southside Occupational Academy. Southside is an Englewood school that teaches job skills to 16- to 21-year-old students with special needs. 

“I thought, ‘How do you [run a campaign] when you’re poor?’” she said. “It’s all these things that in your mind say, ‘I’m not the person,’ even though you deeply care, even though what you’re struggling with is probably directly connected with the very things you want to fight and why you want to run.”