Spotlight on Julie Stevenson

It is not every day your boss hands you a $10,000 check to give to a good cause. But, at Exelon, a Fortune 100 company and the biggest power company in the nation, that is exactly what JRCLS member Julie Stevenson experienced. With revenues of $33.5 billion in 2017, Exelon could certinaly afford to be generous, but Stevenson was not prepared for how generous Exelon would be.

Exelon regularly encourages its employees to provide service, and it allows those who devote more than 40 hours of service in a given a year to apply for special recognition that could also result in additional funds to their chosen charity. Stevenson, one of a handful of in-house attorneys in the Nuclear Group at Exelon, appreciated the company’s commitment to give back to the community. Although she had regularly assisted at the World Relief for Citizenship clinic and the National Immigration Justice Council’s asylum and refugee clinics located across the street from the Company’s Chicago office, last year was her first opportunity to dedicate 40 hours to one organization. After more than 10 years of volunteering at these local groups, immigration was in her blood.

When Stevenson attended her BYU Law School reunion last yea and learned about JRCLS Women in Law’s upcoming Dilley project, it struck a chord. She spontaneously petitioned Exelon for the time off to work for a week at the South Texas Family Residential Center to help women seeking asylum. Exelon not only allowed her the time, but it paid for her trip and gave her a $500 check to help fund the American Immigration Council (AIC), the financial arm of the Dilley Project organizers. She and Nancy Van Slooten, another JRCLS alum, both helped with Spanish translation.

At Dilley, Stevenson saw first-hand the effects that the government’s separation and detention policies had on women and their children. To experience all they had been through in their native lands and then have their children taken away at the border or be locked away in a jail-like detention center together was heart-wrenching. Stevenson was able to explain asylum law to some detainees and assist them in their first legal steps. She said, “If I could just help one woman and her children, that’s my goal.” Helping women pass their first credible fear interview is only the first step in the asylum process. Unsatisfied that the system did not allow her to help them as much as she had wanted, she said, “At least these women know someone cared.”

Motivated by this life-changing trip, she applied for the Powering Communities Exelon Award Program, which is available for those who have exceeded 40 community hours in a given year. She was one of hundreds of applicants, and one of 24 winners of the award, presented by CEO Christopher Crane at four separate luncheons in their honor across the Exelon companies. She is grateful that the $10,000 will give AIC the opportunity to help more refugees at Dilley.

Julie Stevenson speaking at awards luncheon

L-R: Two AIS board members who received the $10K check; Exelon CEO Chris Crane; Julie; Julie's husband Scott

Her final thoughts? “These were just mothers who were trying to keep their families safe. We are more the same than we are different. I felt a real connection to them, and I continue to feel the pull to try to help with asylum work in whatever small way I am able. I plan to do this full time when I retire.”

(Written by Kathryn Latour, member of WIL and Media Committees)