Monica Villalobos serves as the President and CEO of the Arizona Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, which she has been a part of for over 9 years. Founded in 1948, this organization continues to be critical to the community today, operating as the only Minority Business Development Agency in the state. Monica Villalobos recently sat down with Nancy Padberg to discuss their partnership, and the impact Catholic education makes on the future workforce.

The Value of Education for Arizona Hispanic Chamber of Commerce

Melissa and her team believe that a focus on education is important because those students are our future workforce. In recent years, her team has collected data that reveal a lot of the systemic inequities in public school, and the need to work towards resolving those issues. Monica proposes that the Catholic school system provides a wonderful solution to the public school crisis that we have in Arizona.

She adds, “When we provide children with more than just math and science-and those things that are absolutely important-but we also give them that spiritual growth, it propels them to want to do better, and to want to succeed and serve their communities. And that’s what I think Catholic education brings, not only to students, but to Arizona as a whole.”

The Chamber is committed to helping Arizona’s education system provide a pipeline of a skilled workforce, and they believe CEA is a vital part of that solution. After all, the employers, organizations, companies, and small businesses that Monica represents are the end customers of Arizona schools in many ways.

“For us, it’s mission critical that we have a talented and skilled workforce coming out of the K-12 system”, Melissa says, “So that we can employ them, grow our businesses, and keep the economy going. What we do today is not going to matter if we don’t have and we don’t invest in education in those future leaders, those future entrepreneurs and working professionals”.

Melissa and her team have partnered with CEA in not only getting the word out about redirecting tax credits towards Catholic education, but also in promoting various corporate events at schools. It’s this kind of partnership and commitment that will help CEA continue helping the underserved students in our community.

To learn more about how you can support Catholic education in Arizona, contact Catholic Education Arizona today.