Meet Paula Phillips: She's a first generation college graduate and a Filipina American with a deep commitment to service. She completed multiple years of service as an AmeriCorps member with City Year Chicago and then as an ally with Public Allies in Milwaukee; she then went on to join the staff at City Year Milwaukee for several years. In 2017 she jumped into the arena and ran a successful campaign for a seat on the Milwaukee Board of School Directors, where she oversees a school district with 74,000 students and a budget of $1.2 billion. Her work as an elected official is a part-time responsibility that represents just one of the ways that she continues to serve others: After several years working at the Medical College of Wisconsin as a Program Manager for the Center for the Advancement of Women in Science, she recently stepped into a new role as the Women's Outreach Director for the Biden Campaign.
In this interview, Paula discusses where her passion for service comes from, and how she manages to stay centered and balanced amidst the intensity of electoral politics.
At the end of the interview, she lifts up a local non-profit called Maroon Calabash, a collective of Black doulas providing pre-natal and post-natal care and midwifery services to women of color in Milwaukee.
