INTERVIEW BY PHOENIX MINTUS
Photographed by Phoenix Mintus
KARINA VILLA, ILLINOIS STATE SENATOR DISTRICT 25
On her place of special meaning - I chose Turner Elementary School as my place of special meaning for a few different reasons. First, I went through the elementary school system right here in West Chicago. I was a proud graduate of the school system in West Chicago. When I became a school social worker, this was one of the schools that I was able to work in. I absolutely loved Turner. I was on the Board of Education as well.
““Everyone brings unique skill sets to the table.””
Her advice to women who want to run for office - Come as you are, run as you are. If you have a voice and you have a message that you sincerely believe in, find a group of people who will stand by you and take the journey with you. It's important to bring your family onboard. That doesn't always happen right away. I had a group of 20 of my closest friends over and asked them to come join me to talk about the fact that I wanted to run for state representative. And out of that group, there were maybe two who stood by my side the entire time and helped me and worked with me, long, hard, difficult hours to win a campaign. Make sure you have one or two people who are there and they're all in and believe in you, and that they're going to help you through. That's it. If you have the passion to do it and you have the work ethic to get it done, then do it. Because even if you aren't successful, it is a journey of bringing folks to the table and helping them feel like they at least have a candidate that they can vote for, because a lot of folks feel like they don't have a candidate that they can vote for. Even if you lose, it still is making a big impact in showing others that you can run for office.