Patty Hicks is a middle school computer studies teacher with a long history of activism that began when she was a stay-at-home mother with a young child. She worked first on neighborhood issues, expanded to communitywide concerns, and ultimately advocated for Navy Reserve veterans across the United States.

In her first foray into activism, she joined forces with a group in her neighborhood concerned about a gasoline storage tank that was leaking fumes into nearby homes, causing sickness and headaches. She and her neighbors sought help from CAC to learn how to get government authorities to fix the problem. Citizen Advocacy Center helped her learn about her right to speak out at city council meetings, how to contact state agencies for help, and how to file a Freedom of Information Act request.

“The Center built our skills and our confidence,” she said.

Armed with those skills, she broadened her activities to blow the whistle on the City of Elmhurst itself, which had been storing pesticides in leaky tanks.

One of the neighbors in the group turned to her and asked for help advocating for a Navy Reserve veteran who was not getting health benefits. Her work in that case led to a decade-long effort that helped hundreds of injured Navy Reservists across the United States get the help to which they were entitled. Her advocacy took her to Washington, D.C., where she testified before a congressional committee on the problem.