Welcome to Serve Illinois

Leslie Rodriguez - United State Navy Reserves

Leslie Rodriguez, a Chicago native, is a combat veteran of Afghanistan with eight years of service in the United States Navy Reserves as a Builder in the Construction Engineering Corps. As a Naval Seabee she excelled in project management and vertical construction for large infrastructure projects in Afghanistan. She is currently utilizing her Post-9/11 GI Bill pursuing her BA in Human Resource Management. Leslie offers a broad skillset and has a strong desire to help veterans and their families. She left her previous employment as a Corporate Veteran Career Counselor for Walmart's Veteran employment initiative joining Leave No Veteran Behind as their Chief of Staff. She is leveraging her skills to empower veterans through education and employment so that they can solve our nation's most pressing issues.

Read a letter about Leslie’s Volunteer Service below!

I am honored to have the opportunity to write to you regarding Leslie Rodriguez. Leslie Rodriguez serves as a Medical Sexual Assault Advocate for the YWCA Metropolitan Chicago Parks Francis Center and has excelled as a volunteer in our organization. Leslie completed the 40 Hour training with our Sexual Assault Program in December 2016 and has been a very active volunteer since that time. As a volunteer medical advocate volunteers are required to cover two twelve hour shifts per month to meet and assist victims of sexual assault in the emergency rooms of hospitals in our community. Leslie has exceeded that by taking additional shifts when needed. Providing medical advocacy services is difficult work and Leslie has proven herself to be more than capable exceeding every challenge she has faced. Beyond these attributes, Leslie has an amazing passion to advocate for every victim of sexual assault she encounters. She has a genuine caring heart and a conviction for justice, by nature that most people don’t have by practice. She fights for the rights of those who cannot fight for themselves, and she does this with integrity every time. Leslie has advocated for a child victim in the middle of the night, helped a stranger in need on the side of the road and then traveled to a second hospital to help another victim of sexual assault all within a 12 hour shift. Leslie is one of those volunteers that make me want to be better. I excel because of our volunteers and their commitments and Leslie is a volunteer that leads the pack. I am blessed to know, and serve, with her.

Sincerely,
Margaret Graham