Last week we were in Sacramento with SEIU California and our entire coalition for a rally and day of advocacy for our children, families, and workers! The May 21, 2025, theme was “Strength in community. Power to our workers. Abundance for our children.” The movement to end child and family poverty stands strong in the face of federal attacks and we will continue to fight for a liberated future in which all of our communities are secure, respected, nurtured, valued, and free. 

Our morning rally featured speeches by community members, advocates, state assemblymembers & senators, legislative staff, and ECPCA coalition members & families. In the afternoon we invited attendees to engage in legislative visits with their representatives. 

SEIU Local 99 member and child care worker Rasiene Reece spoke at the rally and legislative visits to fight for two essential things. “We’re here fighting for the true cost of care, but number two, we don’t want to cut the progress that we’ve already made with our retirement and our healthcare fund. Instead of us fighting for the true cost of care which was promised to us in 2025, and it’s not coming through, we now have to also fight to keep the stuff that we have.” 

Julia Forte Fruden, senior policy analyst at the Child Care Law Center, attended the rally and shared sentiments similar to Reece. “Childcare providers are majority women of color, immigrants, and they deserve to be paid a fair wage from the state. Families who need affordable child care need it now. They’re waiting on long lists and that’s unacceptable, especially as the federal administration is attacking children, families, and childcare providers.”

Eve Valdez, youth advocate, policy leader, economic development specialist, and community builder, shared her personal experience of how federal support programs like MediCal, foster care programs and CalWORKs helped her heal past trauma and build a fruitful life for herself and her kids. “Because of MediCal, I have access to mental health care to relieve PTSD symptoms, case management and support groups, which turned me into a highly motivated, confident individual with hope. Because of foster care housing programs, I finally know what safety and stability is supposed to feel like. And the CalWORKs program provided me a village for my kids so that I’m able to work, learn, and most importantly heal.”

Senator Sasha Renée Pérez (daughter of an SEIU Local 721 member) spoke at the rally and boldly addressed the need to lead with our values and fight back against the budget crisis we are facing. 

“We need to center this budget on protecting working people, on holding corporations accountable, and on ensuring that our basic needs are being met. It is so incredibly critical to see that discussing cutting off health care access to our immigrant community is absolutely un-Californian and frankly it is also un-American.” 

Malachi Chaney-McLain, a youth leader from California Youth Connection, shared Senator Pérez’s concern about basic needs being met. This threat is happening in California and in Washington, D.C. “We cannot allow these budget cuts to defund programs like Medi-Cal, Medicaid, SNAP, cash aid. We need In-Home Supportive Services. We need all of these programs to succeed.There is so much instability going on right now, and if we were to cut all of these programs, we would see an entire deficit in humanity, not just in budgets. Living in the United States shouldn’t be a luxury. It should be your right if you’re born here, if you came here, if you work here, if you put in the time and the effort to be here, you are an American, you’re a Californian. There really isn’t any reason why any person should have to scratch and claw to get basic help and access to the support they need.”

Healthcare is a human right. Access to food is a human right. Access to housing is a human right. If we don’t have these basic essentials, we cannot survive. And that’s what we need to focus on as we are in this budget crisis.

Senator Sasha Renée Pérez

We thank elected leaders Majority Leader Cecilia Aguiar-Curry  Asm. Mia Bonta,Asm. Isaac G. Bryan, Asm. Jessica Caloza, Sen. Sasha Réne Pérez, Asm. Sharon Quirk-Silva and Sen. Susan Rubio,for speaking at the rally and continuing to fight to protect our immigrant families, foster youth, and for child care for our families. We also thank Asm. Patrick Ahrens, Asm. Dr. Corey Jackson, Asm. Tina McKinnor and Sen. Aisha Wahab for lending their energy and voices and always championing our IMAGINE priorities. 

Assemblymember Dr. Corey Jackson, who chaired the Assembly Budget Subcommittee for Human Services in the afternoon, “There is no doubt we have to make sure that we value our priorities in our budget. We have to make sure that we’re strengthening health care. We have to strengthen child care. We have to make sure that our food banks continue to be full. We have to make sure that our seniors continue to have access to in-home supportive services. We have a whole host of things that need to be done, but it’s time to make sure that we don’t balance our budget on the backs of our most vulnerable.”

Meeting with Leaders

Our afternoon of legislative visits brought rally attendees directly to the offices of their representatives. They shared the urgent demand for a budget that values and nurtures all children and families. Rally attendees from Asian Americans Advancing Justice Southern California (AJSOCAL), The Children’s Partnership, Smart Justice, SEIU 2015 and more met with Senator Angelique Ashby, Asm. Marc Berman,  Senator Christopher Cabaldon,  Asm. Jesse Gabriel, Asm. Alex Lee, Asm. Sharon Quirk-Silva, Asm. Esmeralda Soria, and Asm. Christopher M. Ward.

As always, in the fight to end poverty, we must listen to the children. Génesis Ulloa, The Poet of the Mission, an 11-year-old member of Mission Promise Neighborhood in San Francisco, says it best. “I learned that if you fight for your dreams and for your community, you will win. And although not all children have the possibility of being born with privilege, we do have the possibility to fight for resources that can transform our future. Together we can overcome poverty. I have many dreams for my future and for the future of more than 130,000 children, but if there are no funds, you will take away our hopes.” 

Thank you to all who spoke at our rally!

• Majority Leader Cecilia Aguiar-Curry
• Asm. Mia Bonta
• Asm. Isaac G. Bryan
• Asm. Jessica Caloza
• Roseanne Dimenco – IHSS worker, SEIU Local 2015
• John Hinestroza, SEIU USWW
• Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez
• Asm. Sharon Quirk-Silva
• Rasiene Reece, child care worker, SEIU Local 99
• Susan Rodriguez – SEIU Local 1000
• Ieasha Rouser, Parent Leader, Parent Voices San Diego
• Sen. Susan Rubio
• Génesis Ulloa, member of Mission Promise Neighborhood
• Eve Valdez, Leader and Foster Youth Advocate from California Youth Connection

More Rally content!

👏 Genesis Ulloa, an 11-Year-Old member of Mission Promise Neighborhood shares her passion through poetry

🦋 Ieasha Rouser rally speech about being just one of millions of parents struggling to balance child care and building a future for her family.

🔥 Senator Senator Sasha Renée Pérez’s rally speech ignites the crowd!