‘Tis the season to… support the Fair Food Program education team!

[hupso title=”Tis the season to support the @FairFoodProgram education team! Help raise $10k for @CIW worker education team!” url=”https://ciw-online.org/blog/2014/11/ffp-fundraiser/“]

Farmworkers receive worker-to-worker education under the Fair Food Program
Farmworkers receive worker-to-worker education under the Fair Food Program on a Florida tomato farm.

Use #GivingTuesday and 2014’s holiday season to help us raise $10,000 and underwrite CIW’s crucial worker-to-worker education program…

In one very important way, this holiday season is unlike any other in the CIW’s twenty-year history.  Yes, like every year, workers have returned to Immokalee from their summer season up north.  The CIW’s weekly membership meetings are filling the community center in Immokalee again, calls to request songs dedicated to friends and family are jamming the CIW’s Radio Conciencia’s phone lines again, and CIW staff and Central Committee members are starting preparations for Immokalee’s annual “Year of the Worker” party, again.  And like every year at this time, the harvest here in Florida has begun, ramping up now only to ramp down again when next summer comes and the whole cycle begins anew.

But this year is different because Florida’s tomato harvest, and the CIW’s campaign to modernize the state’s tomato industry after generations of poverty and abuse, are the subject of a major new documentary, “Food Chains,” that has been playing to sold-out crowds in major cities around the country.  And while hundreds of moviegoers left their local theaters and went straight into actions in cities like New York, Miami, and Washington, DC, and thousands more participated in post-screening panel discussions with food movement leaders like Michael Pollan, Eric Schlosser, and Alice Waters, virtually every last viewer who saw “Food Chains” left the film with one question on his or her mind: What can I do to support farmworkers?

There are many ways to take action in the Campaign for Fair Food.  Right now, you can see the film itself — or give it to friends and family as a gift on iTunes. Or you can take action by delivering a letter to the manager of a local Wendy’s or of your neighborhood grocery store, signing petitions, and taking part in Fair Food protests in your community .  

But there is another way of taking action in support of the Fair Food Program, one that we very rarely mention on this site, and that is to make a tax deductible donation to help sustain our work.  

Classy_Fundraiser

This holiday season — starting this week on #GivingTuesday — we’re asking you to help us raise $10,000 to support the CIW’s Fair Food Program worker-to-worker education efforts.   With two teams traveling from farm to farm across the state, four or five times a week, the worker-to-worker education program is at the very heart of the Fair Food Program’s unprecedented success.  But those critical efforts do not come without cost.  We need your help to underwrite the expenses — including the production of rights booklets and videos, the purchase of a new education vehicle, and the provision of educator salaries — necessary to reach workers on isolated farms from south of Miami to west of Tallahassee this tomato season.  Click here to support the FFP Education Team, and please share with your friends!

We also want to take this pivotal moment in the Campaign to show Publix that their customers support the Fair Food Program.  Publix continues to buy from farms that are not part of the Fair Food Program, where workers are not protected by the groundbreaking Fair Food Code of Conduct, and where the education team is not allowed to talk to their fellow workers about their fundamental human rights.  So, when you donate, take a moment to let Publix know:

ON FACEBOOK:  Publix:  I donated to the Fair Food Program this holiday season because I support human rights & fair wages for farmworkers.  I am doing my part to build a more just food system — will you?  Join the Fair Food Program!

ON TWITTER:  @Publix: I donated to support #humanrights & just wages 4 farmworkers this season.  Will you?  Join the @FairFoodProgram!

Thank you — and stay tuned for more on “Food Chains” as well as the Campaign for Fair Food!