For Tatiana Bolton, her son is her biggest motivator.
"His name is Josiah Banks. He's one year old. He's the love of my life," she said.
He's also part of the reason why the 21-year-old quit her old job to find one that better supported her and her role as a mother.
"They don't care if you have a child to attend to," she said. "It's like, 'This is the schedule' and you just got to do that. And if you don't make it, they fire you."
That's when Bolton found Bright Endeavors, a candle and home fragrance company that employs moms ages 24 and under in Chicago.
"We run that business so that we can employ young moms in transitional jobs where they get skills and have a chance to practice those job skills in a real work environment," said Laura Zumdahl, the President and CEO of New Moms.
New Moms is a non-profit founded more than four decades ago in Humboldt Park to respond to a growing need for support for young moms experiencing homelessness.
Bright Endeavors is one of its job training programs.
"Of youth that are experiencing homelessness, 40% are young parents," said Zumdahl. "Most of those are young moms that are parenting. That's a significant portion of youth that are homeless are parenting, and that's a population that can be hard to serve in traditional shelters."
She said there isn't always a place for them in shelters that serve singles and there aren't a lot of family shelters available. And for young moms who do have housing, Zumdahl said they often get kicked out of homes if they become pregnant.
That's where New Moms comes in. Zumdahl said the organization provides supports and programs in things like housing, family support, parent education, parent support groups, mental health ad wellness, financial literacy and job training like Bright Endeavors.
The program Bright Endeavors serves about 100 young moms a year, providing both classroom training and paid job experience.
"Young moms have a chance to really learn some skills in light manufacturing, as well as shipping and logistics, which actually can be skills that could be useful if they go into shipping logistics, but also can be used in other transferable skills that can be used in other industries too," she said.
All of this work powers the small business, which ships candles to customers in Chicago and across the country.
Zumdahl said this means when you purchase and light a Bright Endeavors candle, you're also lighting the way for a young mom to have a brighter future.
"I really believe that if you want to change a community, you have to look to the moms because it's the moms who are the ones holding it up," she said. "We've got to invest in them now if we want our communities to look different in the future."
And for young moms like Bolton, the future is already looking bright. She plans to become a pharmacy technician once she's finished with the program, what she says is a long way from when she first started at Bright Endeavors.
"Since that first day, I blossomed," Bolton said. "I love everybody here, even the moms that finish the program, I still talk to them."
She said through Bright Endeavors, she received both the real-world work experience and certifications she needed to secure a career, as well as soft skills like teamwork and emotional intelligence.
"This program just really gives me the courage," she said. "It's not just you, it's all moms here that I connected with and it helped me find a peace of mind where it's gonna be okay, you know? We all go through stuff."
She said she hopes other young moms find that "sisterhood" at Bright Endeavors like she did.
"I just feel like this program, and many other programs, I give a round of applause because this really helped me," she said. "And I feel like this is really helping a lot of other moms, too."