Maria Harmon is from Lake Charles, LA. She has been organizing since the age of 16 with the Junior Daughters of the Knights of Peter Claver. Maria has a Master’s Degree in Public Administration and a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science from Southern University A&M College of Baton Rouge, LA. During her time at Southern, Maria built a network of over 2,000 students to become civically engaged while working for the Louisiana Democratic Party as a campus organizer. She has worked on many political campaigns ranging from local judges races, to state legislative, and U.S. Statewide Senatorial races. She spent much of her time educating the youth on the importance of voting and encouraging them to turn out the vote. After her tenure at the Louisiana Democratic Party, Maria helped in starting up Democracy Prep Public School of Baton Rouge as a Community Organizer by helping to enroll 192 students for their first academic school year, 2015 - 2016. She has worked for the Micah Project, a federation of Faith In Action, in 2015 as a community organizer working in education justice and civic engagement. Maria is now the Co-Founder and Co-Director of Step Up Louisiana, a grassroots membership based organization that advocates for economic and education justice across the state of Louisiana, since 2017.