Meet the woman leading effort to make America250 a national celebration

As the U.S. prepares to mark the nation’s 250th birthday, Rosie Rios wants the celebration to feel less like a Washington production and more like something that stretches from “sea to shining sea.”

The former U.S. Treasurer has spent the last several years trying to build a semiquincentennial that reaches far beyond the usual symbols of Philadelphia, New York and Washington, D.C., and into something national, local and deeply personal all at once.

Rios, the 43rd treasurer of the United States, was designated chair of the U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission in July 2022 after first serving as one of the 16 private citizens on the 24-member bipartisan panel. She is no stranger to Washington, or to millions of American households. As the U.S. treasurer for seven years, her signature appeared on more than $1 trillion in U.S. currency.

Long before she was helping lead the nation’s 250th anniversary, Rios grew up remembering the glow of fireworks from another big milestone for the country: the bicentennial in 1976.

The daughter of Mexican immigrants who came to California to work in farming communities, Rios was born in California and raised in Hayward, California. Her father worked as a seasonal migrant worker at the Hunt’s Tomato Factory, and her mother later raised all nine children as a single parent and sent them all to college. Rios still recalls the feeling of July 4, 1976.

“It was a cloudy night in Hayward, California, but those fireworks were never brighter,” Rios told ABC News in an interview, recalling the spark in the sky that inspired her at just 10 years old.

“I remember thinking to myself that anything was possible,” she said.

As a fifth grader, Rios took a field trip to the Oakland train station to see the Freedom Train. She would later recall watching tall ships sail into New York and Boston harbors on a black-and-white television screen. A half-century later, she still carries her Bicentennial quarter in her purse as a reminder of the moment that helped shape how she thinks about the country and her place in it.

Those memories have become part of the way Rios talks about the 250th anniversary itself, not just as a look-back but as an invitation forward.

“There will be fireworks, but we’re also building a movement that will continue long after 2026 and unite Americans long after the fireworks fade,” Rios said, framing the 250th as something bigger than a single day of celebration.

She has also argued that the celebration should feel local, physical and personal, especially for younger Americans.

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“You don’t have to come to D.C., you don’t have to go to Philadelphia,” Rios told ABC News in 2025 as planning for the celebration was underway. “You can celebrate the way you want to celebrate in your own home state.”

That focus on local celebrations in all 50 states, five territories and Washington, D.C., has become one of the clearest markers of her leadership.

America 250 Commissioner Cathy Gillespie, who has served with Rios on the commission since 2018, said Rios “has done an amazing job of laying out the infrastructure so that we can absorb from the ground up these grassroots 250 movements and moments that are taking place.”

Gillespie said Rios brought a unifying vision to a commission evenly split between Republicans and Democrats, helping shape the commission’s tent-pole initiatives.

Under Rios, the commission also pushed to establish official 250 commissions in all 56 states and territories, creating the foundation for what she has repeatedly argued should be a truly national celebration, not one confined to a handful of major cities.

“Rosie is just one of the hardest working, most joyful people that I have ever had the privilege to work with in my life,” Gillespie said in an interview with ABC News.

America 250 Commissioner Reginald Browne, who joined the commission in 2023, described Rios as a “visionary” with a knack for finding “the right middle” and building consensus among a wide range of stakeholders. He said she had kept the commission focused on “values-based programs” and an authentic telling of the American story.

“I feel as though that managerially, I think she understands the larger issue and how to find consensus in order to move forward,” he told ABC News.

Those closest to Rios say her family story helps explain the way she leads.

Gillespie said Rios often spoke about her late mother, a Mexican-American immigrant born in Guadalajara in the Mexican state of Jalisco, who arrived in Hayward, California, in 1958. She raised nine children as a single parent and lived long enough to see part of her daughter’s chairmanship on the commission.

Rios also grew up in a household where, as she likes to say, “half the kids ended up as Republicans, half ended up as Democrat.” Gillespie said that helped teach Rios early how to find common ground, hold a room and keep people moving in the same direction.

The chair of America250 is not simply planning America’s birthday party. She has been quietly crisscrossing the country managing a sprawling civic effort that includes student trips, national oral-history Airstream tours, a startup competition, and a time capsule to be opened in 2276.

The lineup of events is anchored by America’s Block Party, a July 3-4 push the organization describes as the largest synchronized Fourth of July celebration in U.S. history, tied to a first-ever Times Square ball drop outside New Year’s Eve.

Rios announced early America250 host cities for America’s Block Party in New York, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and Charleston, South Carolina.

Americans in other parts of the country will also be able to register their own neighborhood block parties through America250.org and listen to a unified national audio experience through iHeartMedia, the Semiquincentennial’s official audio partner. After the fireworks, America250 is planning a July 5 “Day of Reflection,” which will include “America’s Potluck,” a call for communities to gather together and share a meal.

Rios says her goal has been to make America’s 250th birthday free, accessible and open to the public, with events not only in the nation’s capital but also in small towns and communities across the country. At a White House Visitor Center event this week, Rios stood alongside Commissioner Kellyanne Conway and music producer Emilio Estefan as the organization previewed new programming, a notable sign of how wide and varied a cast she is seeking to pull under the same patriotic tent.

Rios has stressed that the American public does not have to wait until July 4 to take part in the celebration. The deadline for the latest round of “America’s Field Trip,” a student contest for grades 3 through 12, is March 30.

Past trips have included behind-the-scenes tours of the New York Stock Exchange, a Smithsonian sleepover and Yellowstone National Park. For many students, she has noted, it was their first time leaving their home state or boarding a plane.

Another competition, “America’s Startup,” the national college competition under the America Innovates umbrella, closes March 31. Americans can also submit family stories through Our American Story and find more information about upcoming events and ways to participate at America250.org.

For Rios, the 250th is not just about looking back at the country’s founding, or even about the crescendo of July 4, 2026. It is about giving the next generation the feeling she remembers from that cloudy California night in 1976, that the future is still theirs to claim.

And if Rios has her way, Americans will remember not just the spectacle of the 250th, but the feeling she has spent years trying to recreate, that anything is possible.