1960 FAMILY VALUE Cousin (at age 3, right, with sister Tybra, 2) is the oldest My of four girls. “I grew up with parents who believed we could do anything—that American was their mantra.”

2008 CONNECTION Dream Though she’s based in , “Chicago is home,” says GREAT SUCCESS Cousin (with Oprah Winfrey AGAINST THE and Michelle Obama). ODDS

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NOVEMBER 2013 HANDS-ON WORK After a typhoon Ertharin Cousin struck the Philippines, Cousin GROWING UP IN CHICAGO’S INNER CITY during the 1960s, passed out high- Ertharin Cousin, 58, learned her community’s motto: energy biscuits to Even if you don’t have much, you share what you have. survivors. She saw it in action while helping out at her grandmother’s restaurant after school. “If people didn’t have money, she would feed them,” she recalls. “There SEPT. 23, 2015 LEADING THE WAY was a sense of responsibility beyond yourself.” With a staf of 13,500 in 80 A Great Big World Maurice, who was born a month countries, Cousin On Sundays Cousin’s father, after graduation in 1975. “My heads the largest Julius, a community activist, and mother said, ‘You’re not going humanitarian mother, Anne, a social worker, to stop here. Go to college for organization in piled their four daughters into one year, and if you still want to the world. “I believe in the the car. “They’d drive us to get married, you have my blessing. generosity afuent neighborhoods so But just go for one year. We’ll of human nature,” we could see life outside our help you,’ ” Cousin recalls. With she says. community,” she says. “So many her family’s help she went people grow up with a ceiling on to earn a law degree from because you don’t know what the . you don’t know. I knew the world was bigger.” Making a Diference Cousin started her career in Focus on Education Chicago politics, later moving High test scores won Cousin a to Washington to work in the spot in a program that allowed Clinton Administration. her to be bused to a Catholic Afterward she took a job as an school in the suburbs. In high executive for the supermarket school she was one of the first chain Albertsons—“It was the girls to enroll at Lane Tech, first time I made a lot of money,” a previously all-male academy. she says—but quit after five years “In many cases in my life I to help lead the food bank was the first,” she says. “Always America’s Second Harvest (now remember that just because called Feeding America). She nobody you know has done was nominated to her current it before, it doesn’t mean you U.N. post in 2012. “I realized can’t be the first to do it.” having the ability to change lives was more important,” she Family Support says. “I believe we can always do Photograph by NATHAN PERKEL As a senior in high school Cousin better and do more.” HAIR & MAKEUP: RENNO BUKO; FROM TOP: COURTESY ERTHARIN COUSIN(2); HUGH ENER/WFP got pregnant with her son —ELAINE ARADILLAS

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