New organizing fellowship honors organizer Tami Love

The Parent Engagement Institute is proud to announce the launch of the PEI Tami Love Organizing Table Fellowship, which will bring together 12 parent mentor organizers from partner organizations to learn and practice organizing and build solidarity. 

Tami Love Organizing Table Fellows with PEI staff members (photos by PEI Parent Support Manager Janel Pilate)

Remembering Tami Love with our new Organizing Table Fellowship

Parent Engagement Institute Parent Support Manager Kathy Davis remembers meeting Tami Love.

“[It was] the first time I went to our Train The Trainer session,” Kathy says. Tami made her come to the front of the room to speak up and share an idea with their breakout group. Together they planned a skit that had the whole room laughing.

That’s how Tami was, recalls Parent Engagement Institute Co-Director Bridget Murphy: “In any meeting or training, Tami and her group always had the most fun, whether it was singing, dancing or little chants,” Bridget says.  “Making sure everyone felt included—she’d be looking to see who was quiet and who looked like they were holding back and she would work to bring them in[to the conversation.]”

As nurturing as Tami could be, she had a tough organizer personality, too. “For the professional organizers, she was hard as nails," Bridget says. "She gave everyone a real authentic assessment of their work.”

“[Tami] pushed me,” Kathy recalls. “She would look into what you were doing and if she saw a talent, she was going to make sure you brought it to the table. It was hard for me when she got sick because I thought, ‘who’s going to push this program now?’ She was the pusher.” 

This spring we decided to create the new Organizing Table Fellowship. It was a no-brainer to name it in honor of Tami Love.

Organizing Table Retreat day 2

From an organizer to a Fellowship focused on organizing

In 1995, Tami Love, mother of three, walked into Funston Elementary School. In a 92% Latino school, she was the only Black parent in the room.

She raised her hand to apply and joined the first cohort of Parent Mentors. Then, she raised her hand to help organize the first Community Learning Center at Funston. She ran it with her fellow mother Ada Ayala who spoke almost no English.

Together, Tami and Ada kept the school open for the community until 8 pm. Funston was buzzing with ESL classes every night. They had more parents pass the GED than any other City Colleges site in the city.

They organized parents for funding, for safety, and for housing. They learned each other’s languages and they wept together when they listened to the stories of undocumented families at the school. Tami went on to become a housing organizer at Palenque LSNA, embedding herself at Lathrop Homes, one of Chicago’s only racially integrated public housing communities, working towards fair housing and jobs.

In 2015, Tami joined the Parent Engagement Institute team, reconnecting with her roots in the Parent Mentor Program. She was a steadfast voice for program fidelity, holding our feet to the fire to make sure the organizing and leadership development history of PMP was authentic and intentional as we scaled up across the state. 

“This table will seek to teach and learn organizing by doing”

Tami formed the Organizing Table, “The O.T.,” within PEI as “a place where organizers can share and get care.” From a December 2019 mission statement: "This table will seek to teach and learn organizing by doing.”

The Parent Mentor Program has grown since Tami helped us get our start more than 30 years ago. The new Organizing Table Fellowship is one way to stay focused on our mission to foster organizing and build powerful families and school communities.

“Building lines of solidarity was Tami’s way... A big goal of the Fellowship is multiracial solidarity.” Bridget says. “Another is getting to our core mission of building power. The organizing is not an extra thing, it’s our why—the lens through which we do the programmatic work. ”

Nancy Aardema, standing, is the Fellowship facilitator

Goals of the new Tami Love Organizing Table Fellowship and Participating Fellows

In July, we reconvened the Organizing Table with 12 seasoned staff from our community partner organizations:

• Denisse D. Arzate, Southwest Suburban Immigrant Project (SSIP)

• Gabriela Noemi Barajas Gonzalez, Palenque LSNA

• Ofelia Carmona, The Resurrection Project

• Jazmin Cerda, Brighton Park Neighborhood Council (BPNC)

• Joy Jackson, Greater Auburn Gresham Development Corporation (GAGDC)

• Sabrina Jackson, Teamwork Englewood

• Ivette Martinez, Hispanic American Community Education and Services (HACES)

• Sherri Miles, Southwest Organizing Project (SWOP)

• Sonam Mohindra, Indo-American Center

• Nellie Moreno, ONE Northside

• Denise Sanders, The ACE Project

• Claiborne Wade, Family Focus - Lawndale

Read more about the Fellows on our new Tami Love Organizing Table Fellows page.

From now through December 2027 the Fellows will:

• Learn about organizing through workshops and on-the-ground practice on campaigns that build cross-community solidarity

• Create new shared decision-making spaces for Parent Mentor Program organizations, and

• Center wellness and joy in organizing careers.

Their organizations and executive directors are also committing time and resources to the process. A grant from Schreiber Philanthropy will help organizations cover the Fellows time.

Former Palenque LSNA executive director Nancy Aardema will facilitate the Fellowship. She will join monthly meetings and work with each Fellow one on one. Nancy is a good fit, since she helped create what became the Parent Mentor Program. She also hired Tami Love to help create the first community school at Funston Elementary.

“I just love how the [Organizing Table Fellows] think about Tami,” Nancy says. “She always spoke truth — Tami didn't play. She was very, very funny, a lot of fun to be around. But when it came to work, she was very serious about getting the work done, doing the right thing, and treating people the way they should be treated.”

Tami Love Organizing Table Fellows: Ivette Martinez, Claiborne Wade, Sherri Miles, and Joy Jackson

Learning to lead with joy and justice and more organizing tips from the experts

At the kickoff retreat from July 22-24, led by Nancy, the Fellows are off to a good start. They spent time getting to know each other and discussing “why organize” and some of the steps used in organizing.  

Speakers include Palenque LSNA President Rev. Juan Pablo Herrera, pastor of Urban Village Church.

Juan Pablo describes how, in 2019, Puerto Ricans used perreo combativo protest dances to help bring down the island’s corrupt governor. He shares his own experience in public life, and lessons about organizing, leadership and power.

Nancy, who Juan Pablo has worked with for more than 30 years, joins in on a wider discussion about dealing with conflict. Around the table, Organizing Table Fellows share their own experiences and feelings. 

It’s hard to imagine a more appropriate setting for the retreat than this church basement. It’s in Chicago First Church of the Brethren in North Lawndale. This is the same church that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. worked from during his 1966 Chicago Freedom Movement organizing campaign.

Sitting together are the Organizing Table Fellows and Parent Engagement Institute staff. For Kathy, there’s one more person present, at least in spirit: Tami Love.

“I'm excited to see [how the Organizing Table turns out],” Kathy says. “Tami wanted us to have our own events, so people can see we are organizers [and] that we can put together these things [ourselves]. So, being in that room with the Fellows — I believe Tami was there every day.”