Linda Sarate: 7th District Winner, 2012 Peggy A. Montes Unsung Heroine of Cook County Award

Linda Sarate and her family moved to the Little Village Community of Chicago from Texas in 1966. Linda began her volunteer work at the Lawndale Mennonite Church in 1968, when she was only eleven years old and has been involved ever since. In 1997, Linda was introduced to AmeriCorps and completed its program in 1998.

In 2001, Linda and seventeen other community members known as “Little Village Mothers for a New High School” began a nineteen day hunger strike for a much needed and long promised new high school in the Little Village Community. The hunger strike received international attention and four years later, the Little Village Lawndale High School Campus was opened. When the school opened its school-based health center, Linda served on its Board for 5 years.