It’s perhaps no accident that 26-year-old Marvin Campos has found his calling as an advocate for one of Chattanooga’s most vulnerable immigrant communities.
Campos, 26, who was born in Los Angeles to immigrant parents, says his his mother is from Mexico and his father is from El Salvador. He grew up watching them helping others in the Hispanic communities in cities across America where they lived and worked – Wichita, Kansas; Kansas City, Missouri; Omaha, Nebraska and Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Today, Campos serves as a life coach for an outreach program sponsored by the Partnership for Families, Children and Adults. The United Way-funded program, called Building Stable Lives, aims to provide a bridge to social services for families with dire needs.
“We don’t have funding (for direct assistance),” Campos says. “It’s basically creating goals and connecting them to resources.
“The goals could be: I want a new job. I want to save money. Or I want to find daycare for my kids.”