Rey Raigoza

Business Advisor, Illinois Hispanic Chamber of Commerce

My name is Rey Raigoza and I am a community organizer in the neighborhood of Little Village. I graduated from Gary Elementary School and Cristo Rey Jesuit High School. I am currently doing a Co-terminal degree at DePaul University, earning my bachelor’s in economics and my master’s in economics and Public Policy.

My passion for the community began in the same fields that kept me off the streets. I started coaching our youth about 7 years ago. Since then, it has developed into a full youth mentorship program called the Urban Warriors. Through fundraising and support from many organization and community leaders, the program that I developed is completely free.

Mentoring our youth in the community has been an honor but more needs to be done if we want future generations to succeed. Patchwork is done consistently in our neighborhoods but to change the system we need to change policy to bring prosperity into our neighborhoods. In 2019, I helped Alderman Michael Rodriguez get elected by being a precinct captain for the ward as well as a campaign coordinator for the campaign. City Politics are important, but state legislation is needed to be done as well. I started helping State Senator Celina Villanueva collect signatures, as well as State Representative Edgar Gonzalez. I am a firm believer that changes need to be made in both sectors to bring development within in our Latino Communities.

One of my biggest political accomplishments up to date is coordinating for Aaron Ortiz in the Southwest side to defeat Burke as Committeeman of the 14th ward. We canvassed throughout the southwest communities and coordinated to effectively win that campaign.