What can people in poverty do to improve their lives? Mary Gonzales takes an atypical approach; organizing disadvantaged communities to exercise political clout they didn’t know they had.

Mary Gonzales, The Gamalilei Foundation's regional organizer for California and Hawaii, reports that her greatest success story to date occurred in Venturra County, where a combination of organizational outreach and concentrated research enabled the local agricultural community to fend off a major mining operation's plans.