Independent Women’s Forum is pleased to announce that Virginia Walden Ford, the educational choice activist whose story is soon to be told in a movie, is the latest in our popular series of Champion Women profiles.

Without Walden Ford and her army of “amazing” parent activists, it is entirely possible that the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program, which gives scholarships to low-income kids to attend private and parochial schools, would not exist.

Walden Ford’s path to school choice activism began with her son William, who was cutting school and being courted by drug dealers. “William was one of those kids God gives you so you’ll find out if you really have what it takes to be a parent,” Walden Ford tells IWF.

Walden Ford had what it takes and solving William’s problems led her to want to help other kids. She had another inspiration: two public-school teacher parents, in racially troubled Little Rock, Arkansas, who gave her an unshakable belief in the power of education.

We know you will enjoy meeting this outstanding woman, who has a zest for life and who has made life better for kids who just needed the chance school choice could make available.