In 1954, on Chicago's near west side, a new civic organization called Pilsen Neighbors Community Council (PNCC) emerged as Eastern European immigrants banded together to confront their community's most pressing needs. In the late sixties and early seventies, the Pilsen neighborhood underwent a major demographic change with a dramatic influx of newly arriving immigrants from Mexico. These new arrivals transformed the Pilsen community and PNCC was reinvigorated by the new group of residents and switched from providing social services to a more vocal, organizing engine. Our banner was now being raised to rally residents on grass-roots community action. This new process brougth PNCC to the front-line on many issues and a series of great successes.By focusing on developing new community leaders through its network of "core teams," PNCC has worked in alliance with churches, other community based organizations and schools to make its voice heard on a path to citizenship, education funding reform, economic development, and universal healthcare. PNCC trains and equips clergy, principals and neighborhood leaders to organize residents who desire a voice in public policy decisions affecting their lives. PNCC has been the vehicle through which residents have organized and won many victories, among them, Eighteenth Street Development Corporation, Benito Juarez Communty Community Academy El Valor Corporation, Esperanza School, and a handful of local schools.