A Heartfelt Thank You for Another Incredible Year of Operation Santa!
Since 2020, our holiday celebrations at New Moms have looked a little different, and for four years, Operation Santa has been at the heart of it all. This wonderful Christmas toy drive has grown stronger each year, helping us better support families and strengthen our New Moms community. It’s been inspiring to watch people from all walks of life—families, businesses, and multiple generations—come together to surround our families with LOVE and help create unforgettable holiday memories.
This year, we received 2,665 gifts donated! Thanks to the generosity of our community, we received even more gifts after the registry closed, making it possible for us to spread joy to so many families.
We are deeply grateful to all the volunteers, donors, and supporters who made this possible. Your participation in Operation Santa ensures that love, connection, and the hope for a bright future continue to shine brightly for the young families in our programs.
Wishing you a joyful, healthy, and peaceful holiday season!
She was in the final months of her first pregnancy with little support from her family. She questioned the quality of life she could provide for her child and considered putting her baby up for adoption. How could she do this all alone?
One day, in a final effort to find support, she searched the internet and discovered New Moms.
When she learned how New Moms’ programs supported young moms just like her, she courageously walked through the front door of New Moms, where she was warmly met by our Family Support Manager, Courtney.
This step changed everything; she found a glimmer of hope.
For De’Avioun, New Moms’ programs became a lifeline. She enrolled in New Moms’ doula services two weeks before welcoming her baby girl into the world. With this new supportive community around her, she no longer felt she had to parent alone. De’Avioun saw a future where she could be a wonderful mom to her baby. She named her daughter “Elenisse” meaning “ray of sunshine.” Light is a meaningful theme in her life. “Even when Elenisse was born, it was raining, but then the sun came out. It felt like hope,’” De’Avioun said.
De’Avioun sees a bright future for herself and Elenisse. Encouraged by New Moms staff, she has enrolled at Triton College to pursue an associate’s degree in architecture and plans to graduate in 2026. De’Avioun’s personal experience with housing insecurity fuels her aspirations to design residential homes. She hopes that her future work as an architect becomes a reflection of her journey. A single glimmer of hope can transform a person’s journey from shadows to light.
Today De’Avioun is leaning on the supportive community of New Moms while she discovers the joy of parenting and achieves her goals.
“New Moms has helped me gain more self-awareness and given me the confidence to be a mom, because I didn’t have it before.”
As 2024 comes to a close, New Moms needs your help to reach our critical goal of $283,000 by December 31.
Your generosity impacts over 767 young moms and their children, like De’Avioun and Elenisse, each year. You ensure they have a community of support that can give them hope for the future.
“As a leader at New Moms, I want it to be a place where folks are able to accomplish their best work and enjoy their workplace.” -Laura Zumdahl, New Moms CEO
We’re thrilled to announce that New Moms has been named one of Crain’s 2024 Best Places to Work in Chicago and are recognized as one of the top 100 companies to work for in this great city.
Mallory Tesauro, Director of Human Resources at New Moms played a major role in the Crain’s Chicago application process and was stopped in her tracks after receiving an email announcing the award. She couldn’t wait to share the news.
“I am proud to work with people who are deeply invested in one another. New Moms has a culture of community. We come together for a common purpose that we care about, and we believe we do our best work together. We have the most welcoming staff who can’t wait to embrace new employees and make sure they feel included throughout their journey.”
In order to be considered for the award, at least 40% of employees need to voluntarily complete the survey. “We had almost 70% complete the survey! It was their great feedback that allowed New Moms to be recognized, Mallory said. “Our employees are our greatest ambassadors and it was awesome to see how much they love being part of this great organization.”
Every day our team creates safe, positive spaces for the young moms we partner with as they achieve multigenerational success. To our New Moms team: A tremendous thank you for making our workplace truly exceptional. Here’s to continuing our remarkable work and making a difference in the lives of our young families!
With curious eyes, a child looks to their parents to guide them through life’s major milestones.
From a baby’s first words to their first steps ─ a parent is their child’s first and best teacher.
When Dilley realized her boys were curious about her while they shared young aspirations of being racecar drivers and policemen, she wanted to tell them that she enjoyed her work. Determined to get the support she needed to make that a reality, she found New Moms.
Economic instability creates added stress on young moms as they define their purpose and pursue a future for their families. At New Moms, each young mom is surrounded by a supportive community that walks alongside her. Through our comprehensive programs and multi-generational approach, young moms take control of their lives by setting and accomplishing goals that move them closer to their vision of a strong future.
Before New Moms, Dilley worked temporary jobs without a clear career trajectory to help sustain her and her three young sons whose ages range from infant to 7.
Dilley felt stifled in her previous jobs. She knew her capabilities, but she was not encouraged to develop those skills.
“I used to work at a restaurant, and I was a crew trainer. They’d be like, ‘you’re a crew trainer, not a supervisor’,” Dilley shared. “I feel like I’ve always had some sort of push back, like, ‘hey, limit yourself. You’re not as big as you think.”
At New Moms her strengths were celebrated! She could refine her skills and unlock new career pathways.
With the support of her career coach, Dilley hit the ground running. She had a new-found confidence in her leadership abilities and access to new career opportunities.
“Initially I thought I was just showing up to have an income for my children,” Dilley expressed. “The staff at New Moms showed me I was there for so much more! They showed me I was there to be the fierce leader I forgot I was.”
With New Moms’ support, Dilley was hired as a receptionist. Our programs help young moms like Dilley, write their own story and create lasting success.
The work at New Moms takes a community that is committed to seeing every young family thrive. Your generosity makes a powerful, multigenerational impact on the lives of over 695 young moms and their children each year.
Our Fiscal Year 2024 is concluding, and now is an important moment for you to help young moms continue to be driven by their purpose and achieve positive outcomes for their families.
We need your help to raise $30,000 before June 30, 2024, so that New Moms can continue to be a strong and stable resource for young moms and their children.
I recently celebrated my 10-year anniversary serving as the President and CEO at New Moms. As I reflect on a decade of leading New Moms, I’m filled with a profound sense of gratitude for the journey. Our core values of love, grit, possibility, connection, and equity are the guiding force behind our work with the remarkable young mothers and their children we have the privilege to support. And over the last decade, I’ve watched New Moms become an even more distinctive and special place, with a nationally recognized model. Serving in this role has been the biggest privilege of my professional life. The New Moms community is full of grace, goodwill, and a relentless push toward excellence, and I’m grateful to be part of this unique and wonderful team.
Perhaps the question I’m often asked in my role is: “How do you know if New Moms is making a difference for the young families you serve?”
While I often find myself sharing data about our impact — our exceptional results on family well-being, economic mobility, and family stability measures — that presents an incomplete picture. Sometimes I give an example of a recent young family we served through a story about how their life changed as the result of accomplishing their goals. But that too, just tells part of the story.
The real answer is I can’t tell you…yet.
Because things, especially big, hard life transitions, take time. Getting a degree can lead to better job opportunities. Better financial options can ensure that you stay housed and have enough money for the essentials. And the stability of all these factors increases the emotional resources parents have for their children. But all these things take hard work, goal-driven persistence, and time.
We know that we’re just part of the story of a young family at New Moms. Our participants do the hard work and we come alongside them during a chapter on their journey — supporting, coaching, and cheering them on as they work to build strong families. And the result of their hard work? The impact of New Moms? That we will more fully know in a generation.
What I do know is that because of the support of New Moms, we are privileged to witness the beginning of this generational change. Dominique is now living in her own apartment and is beginning her career in her first job. Latoya refers back to the skills she learned at New Moms seven years ago which helped her weather job transitions during COVID and persist to pursue a career where she finds great opportunity — she’s even saving for a down payment on a home for her and her three boys! I do know that moms in our programs consistently express an increased confidence in their ability to lead their families and navigate the very real challenges that life brings their way. And I know that New Moms’ outcomes consistently surpass national averages compared to programs doing similar work. I know, because of each story, and the robust data that we collect, that New Moms is making a significant impact in this critical time in the life of a young family. It is this community of support that gives a young mom the space that she needs to build a foundation that will give her stability when she moves past her time with us.
New Moms celebrated our 40th anniversary last year, a natural moment to look back. Stories like Eliza’s, who was a young mom in our programs in 1995 and now provides leadership to New Moms as a member of our board of directors, show us that only when we look back can we really see the lasting impact of our work. We can see how an entire family was changed by their interaction with New Moms, and the children that were part of our community 25 years ago are now thriving adults. Multi-generational change is the long-game, and we’re here for it.
So, while 10 years feels like a long time, it’s not long enough to know the full impact. I’m going to stick around for a while longer because I want in on the impact — I want to be part of ensuring that every young family thrives.
Thank you for being part of this journey with me. Stick around and be part of the change!
It may seem counter-intuitive, but in reality, Poverty is Expensive. Poverty looks like: Hopelessness for families who can’t find a safe place to sleep at night A 19-year-old mother who didn’t graduate from high school, is struggling to find a job and has a baby who’s dependent on her Generations of families never rising above cycles of unemployment, gang involvement and drug use Decisions made out of desperation, leading to unstable, dangerous communities Poverty increases costs of police, government dependence, mental health and foster care services, and more. It costs ALL of us more.Your support of New Moms helps the fight against poverty with a model of transformation that makes economic sense.
Thank You! – LaToya
When we fight poverty, amazing things happen. We see LaToya, a recent graduate from New Moms Workforce Development program, on a path towards self-sufficiency. She has a full-time retail job, and has already been promoted to assistant manager-providing stability and resources for herself and her son and daughter. But most of all she has hope, knowing the cycle of poverty stops with her. It’s been a particularly challenging year with the Illinois State budget impasse, which has left New Moms without 20% of our funding.
Will you help us raise the $25,000 we need before our fiscal year end on June 30? Join us in this fight and make a gift today – providing hope and transformation for two generations of youth.
