Chicago Community Bond Fund wishes you all a happy new year! We thank you all for your support in 2020, which brought us all new and unknowable challenges. 

In 2020, CCBF’s staff grew to meet the needs of the movement and people in Cook County Jail. We created three new positions, welcoming Briana Payton as our Policy Fellow and Christina Lorenzo as our Intake Coordinator. Former collective member Sara Brodzinsky returned to CCBF as our Operations Manager, and Jianing Xie came on board as CCBF’s Staff Attorney. Executive Director Sharlyn Grace, Deputy Director Keisa Reynolds, and Campaign Coordinator Malik Alim also continued their work with CCBF. For more on all that we accomplished together this year, please see our 2020 Highlights.

Today, we are also saying goodbye to two wonderful staff members, Matt McLoughlin and Lavette Mayes. 

A founding member of CCBF, Matt has given the organization more than five years of service, three and a half of them as Director of Programs. Matt has worn many hats in the organization, playing a role in CCBF’s revolving fund, education and advocacy, and our campaign with the Coalition to End Money Bond. He has collaboratively worked with his colleagues and CCBF’s partners to get us closer to our mission of ending money bond and reducing pretrial incarceration in Illinois. Matt helped establish CCBF’s revolving bail fund and build relationships with people whose bonds we paid. He has also played a large role in increasing CCBF’s education and advocacy capacity, which has grown the network of people supporting our mission and helped build the statewide campaign for the Pretrial Fairness Act. 

Lavette has been working with CCBF since 2018 as an Advocate, helping to advance the campaign to end money bond and pretrial jailing. As part of that work, Lavette has done dozens of media interviews and spoken to thousands of people in person—including legislators and other elected officials. She even traveled to the Sundance Film Festival in 2018 for the premiere of a film about her experience with money bond: Lavette’s Choice. Lavette’s bravery and generosity in sharing her own story has moved countless hearts and minds and helped build the national movement to end money bail.

While they will no longer be on staff with CCBF, both Matt and Lavette plan to continue their work in the movement to end money bond. Thank you, Matt and Lavette, for all you do! 

As we say goodbye to 2020, we invite you to celebrate all the work we did together this year as a movement. We look forward to ending money bond in Illinois in 2021!