President, Rev. John Thomas

Rev. Thomas is an ordained minister of the United Church of Christ. From 1999 to 2009 he served as General Minister and President of the United Church of Christ. He has also been a pastor of congregations in Connecticut and Pennsylvania, served as the denomination’s national ecumenical officer, and was a member of the faculty of Chicago Theological Seminary. Rev. Thomas is retired and lives with his wife, Lydia Veliko, in Hyde Park. He is a member of Epiphany United Church of Christ in Chicago.

Secretary, Arnoldo Fabela

Arnoldo is the Director of Field Organizing at the Illinois Federation of Teachers (IFT), a state-wide union with 103,000 members. He was instrumental in Arise incubating the union at Old Town School of Folk Music, consisting of 250 teaching artists who are now members of IFT Local 909. He has been an organizer in labor, racial, and social justice movements for two decades, working previously with SEIU’s Justice for Janitors and UFCW’s WalMart campaigns. Arnoldo is a proud family member with his wife Maria, and children Sofia, Xavier, and Sebastian.

Treasurer, Rev. Jason W. Coulter

Rev. Coulter is the Senior Minister of First Congregational Church of Evanston (UCC). Prior to serving FCCE, he was the pastor of Ravenswood United Church of Christ in Chicago for sixteen years. Rev. Coulter is a native of West Bend, Wisconsin and a life-long member of the United Church of Christ. He is a graduate of Macalester College, received a Master’s Degree from Cornell University, and completed his Master of Divinity at Chicago Theological Seminary. Before entering the ministry, Rev. Coulter worked for thirteen years as a union organizer where he helped thousands of workers organize unions, including textile workers in North Carolina, warehouse workers in Indianapolis, and industrial laundry workers in Chicago, Detroit, and Cleveland. Rev. Coulter is the chair of the Chicago Metropolitan Association (UCC) Congregational Life Ministry Team. He was selected as one of twelve fellows in the Lilly Foundation program Chicago Commons directed by the University of Chicago Divinity School. He is an accomplished activist, compelling writer, and powerful speaker.

Brenda Bedolla

Brenda serves as the City and County Political Coordinator for SEIU Healthcare Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, and Kansas. Her passion for workers’ rights and social justice was shaped by firsthand experience, including working for 10 years in the Chicagoland restaurant industry. She is passionate about building people power in and outside of workplaces, and can be found organizing her community when she's not organizing workers. Brenda is a contributing author to Today’s Inspired Young Latinas, Volume V, and has served as a Director for the Morton College Foundation since 2019. She holds an Associate of Arts degree from Morton College and a Bachelor’s degree in Sociology and Women’s and Gender Studies from Northeastern Illinois University.

Guillermo “Gil” Barragan

Gil has been a member of the Carpenters Union for 25 years. He worked in the field for 10 years as a welder-framer and commercial and residential carpenter. During his early years of membership, whenever work slowed down and he was laid off, he volunteered to organize workers who were victims of workplace violations. His passion for organizing comes from witnessing his parents’ experiences with workplace violations—his mother was a union seamstress, and his father was a steel mill union steward for 15 years. His parents settled in Pilsen where he was born, later moving to Little Village. After graduating from John F. Kennedy High School on Chicago’s southwest side, Gil attended National Louis University before working as a carpenter. He has taken certification classes at the Carpenters Union Training Center, Triton College, and Carpenters Department of Education and Training International. Currently, he serves as a Business Representative for the Mid-America Carpenters Regional Council, specializing in investigating fraud on construction job sites that often leads to organizing campaigns for improved worker conditions.

Alfredo Benedetti

Alfredo first came to Arise Chicago via a worker campaign at a local food production facility, where he spoke out against unjust treatment, harassment, and low pay. He quickly became a campaign leader and spokesperson, giving interviews to the Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Tribune, WBBM, and Telemundo. As a working parent, he takes action to improve working conditions for himself and all workers, both to support his family and to set an example for his children.

Imam Tariq I. El-Amin

Imam El-Amin is the Senior Imam of the Board of Masjid Al-Taqwa, a member of Iron Workers Local 1, and is completing a Master of Divinity with a focus on Islamic Chaplaincy from Bayan Islamic Graduate School/Chicago Theological Seminary. He co-founded Bridging The Gap Inc. and serves as a board member of The Abolition Institute, an international anti-slavery nonprofit. He has served as on-air host/producer of Radio Islam, Director of Civic Engagement and Interfaith Services at the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago, and as an appointee to the Illinois Muslim Advisory Council.

Isabel Escobar

Isabel came to Arise in 2011 for wage theft while working as a domestic worker. Through perseverance and support from her sons and Arise Chicago, she won a large payment for owed wages. Isabel was a leader in the fight for the Illinois Domestic Workers Bill of Rights. For her efforts, she was recognized in 2016 by President Barack Obama’s administration and invited to the White House. Isabel is a returning Arise board member.

Rev. Lindsey Long Joyce

Rev. Joyce currently serves as Lead Pastor of the Northside Co-op, a team of pastors that share care for three congregations. She is a long-time member of the Leader's Network, a member of the Logan Square Ecumenical Alliance, and co-president of the board of ONE Northside. Lindsey is trained in community organizing, cross-cultural community building, and restorative justice. Her passion is for every mountain to be made low and every valley to be lifted up in our social landscape. She received a Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a Master of Divinity from Duke Divinity School.

Maria Medina

María came to Arise due to workplace sexual harassment and stayed involved for many years, increasing her leadership. As a domestic worker, she completed Arise training as a Domestic Worker Contract Specialist and participated in several leadership courses. María has two young daughters and continues her engagement and activism to build a better future for them.

Ameya Pawar

Ameya is the President and CEO of the Michael Reese Health Trust. He was alderman of Chicago's 47th Ward and the first Asian and Indian American elected to the Chicago City Council. While in office, he focused legislative efforts on social justice, worker rights, and economic justice—leading much of Chicago’s labor policy between 2011 and 2019, including raising the minimum wage, guaranteeing paid sick leave, creating the Office for Labor Standards, combating wage theft, and preserving housing for the most vulnerable. Ameya chaired the Chicago Resilient Families Task Force, the nation’s first city-led effort to study guaranteed income and the expansion of the earned income tax credit. He holds graduate degrees from the University of Chicago and the Illinois Institute of Technology and was named to Crain's Chicago 40 under 40 in 2011. In 2018, he was named a McCormick Foundation Executive Fellow and was a Pritzker Fellow at the University of Chicago's Institute of Politics.

Jackson Potter

Jackson has been an education activist since he led a student walkout at Whitney Young High School in 1995 to push for equitable school funding. As a teacher and union delegate at Englewood High School, he fought school closings when then-CEO Arne Duncan began a phase-out in 2005. After helping organize for Karen Lewis’s election to the CTU presidency, Jackson served as CTU staff coordinator from 2010 to 2018, then returned to teaching as a social studies teacher at Back of the Yards College Prep. He was elected Vice President of the Chicago Teachers Union in 2022.

The Very Rev. Joy Rogers

Rev. Rogers is the retired dean of Chicago’s St. James Episcopal Cathedral, serving from 2006 to 2014. During that time, she opened the Cathedral to workers in the Fight for $15 campaign and supported Arise Chicago’s coalition campaign for the Illinois Domestic Workers Bill of Rights. She has served congregations in Illinois and Michigan and is a former Arise Chicago board member.

Carlos Sosa

Carlos joined Arise Chicago in 2024 after reporting severe injuries and workplace concerns at his suburban factory. He became a leader in the campaign and a spokesperson with the press. Carlos is active in Arise Chicago programming, including the Tu Lucha es Mi Lucha (Your Struggle is My Struggle) solidarity group and May Day planning. He enjoys traveling and spending time with his children and grandchildren.

Claudia Terrazo

Claudia has been a member of Arise Chicago since 2023. She first came after facing problems at work and seeking information and support to take action. She led her coworkers in a campaign against retaliation for organizing and has since become an active leader in several Arise programs, including Las Adelitas and May Day planning. She also speaks to the press as an Arise Chicago spokesperson. Previously a programming analyst, she is active in her church and volunteers at her children’s school. She is a proud mother and supporter of their studies and careers.

Don Villar

Don was born into the labor movement and spirit of social justice after his family immigrated to the U.S. In 1991, he became a member of NABET-CWA Local 41, a union representing broadcast and TV production workers in Chicago. During his 25-year journalism career at WLS-TV (ABC), he won an Emmy Award for breaking news coverage. Don later earned a Juris Doctorate from Loyola Law School. In 2010, he was elected Vice President of NABET-CWA Local 41 and became President in 2015, focusing on organizing, movement building, and collective bargaining. He now serves as Secretary-Treasurer of the Chicago Federation of Labor and sits on the Campaign Cabinet of United Way of Metropolitan Chicago.

Father John Hoffman

Was born in Chicago and raised on a farm near Round Lake. He attended Loyola Academy in Wilmette and later Spring Hill College in Mobile, Alabama. From 1969–1971, he served with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps in Seoul, Korea. He was ordained a diocesan priest for the Archdiocese of Chicago in 1975 and has since served in parishes across the region, including Pilsen, the DePaul area, Park Ridge, Arlington Heights, Schaumburg, and Ingleside–Fox Lake. For the past 20 years, Father Hoffman has been actively involved with Priests for Justice for Immigrants. He has participated in numerous Arise Chicago activities and has attended the Friday morning prayers at the Broadview Detention Center since they began. Now retired and living in Park Ridge, he continues to support parishes, retreat houses, and retirement communities through sacramental ministry.