Lynn minimum wage advocate honored at White House

LYNN – Noreen Maggio is not the activist type, according to Rabbi Margie Klein-Ronkin, which is why she was the perfect choice to represent ECCO at the White House in Washington, D.C.”She is just the warmest person you’ll ever meet,” said Klein-Ronkin, the director of clergy and leadership development for ECCO, the Essex County Community Organization. “She is so dedicated and not an activist or political type at all.”Maggio helped lead an effort by ECCO, a grassroots organization of 25 congregations and institutions that fights for social justice issues, to collect signatures on the North Shore for Raise Up Massachusetts. Ultimately, Raise Up Massachusetts collected 370,000 signature, enough to get a minimum wage and sick time initiative on the November ballot.Klein-Ronkin said after its success, ECCO received a letter from the White House inviting representatives to a ceremony to be honored among several other groups from across the country that launched similar initiatives.”I immediately thought of Noreen,” she said.Klein-Ronkin called Maggio a den mother to dozens of kids who got involved in social action when one of the neighborhood children didn’t have a winter coat. She said over time Maggio came to believe that her charity wasn’t enough and she wanted to create longer-term solutions to poverty.A member of St. Mary’s/Sacred Heart Parish, Maggio organized fellow parish members to collect more than 2,000 signatures as part of the larger effort. She said she joined the effort to raise the minimum wage simply because she wanted to help champion change.”I’m not very political. I just want to make sure we’re doing the right thing for everybody,” she said. “That’s it.”Maggio called the trip to the White House a thrill.”It’s one of those moments in life you will always remember,” she said.While she didn’t meet the president, she did meet others who, like herself, worked for change, heard stories from business owners in favor of the minimum wage increase and listened to several speakers, including the secretary of the Department of Labor, Thomas Perez.”Then they had a bit of a panel discussion ? it was great,” Maggio said.She may not consider herself a political person, but it doesn’t mean she wasn’t fascinated by the process. Maggio said it was interesting to watch the politics taking place right in the room during the ceremony.When asked if she ever thought she would have to the opportunity to visit the White House, Maggio laughed.”No, never,” she said. “It was very, very exciting, and I was very humbled by the whole thing.”