Dear Friends,
On Mother’s Day we remember the commandment to “honor thy father and mother” and give thanks for the many ways mothers promote well-being within families. But farmworker mothers, who labor in the Florida fields providing food for families across America, struggle to feed their own families. You can help change this.
This Mother’s Day weekend, mothers have come together — from both ends of the supply chain. Farmworker mothers and consumer mothers, bound by their universal desire to provide for their families, are uniting their voices to invite Publix Supermarket to become a part of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers’ Fair Food Program. You can support their call by signing the “Publix: Support farmworker mothers” Petition on change.org .
“On Mother's Day, we ask that you, Publix executives, recognize our affliction and the necessity of just wages for us as farmworkers, who as mothers are responsible for feeding our children," said Immokalee mother Carmen Esquivel.
The Rev. Tricia Dillon Thomas, a Publix customer and Presbyterian minister explains, "As a mother it is important to me that the food I put on the table is planted and harvested while maintaining farmworker dignity. I cannot very well ask the Lord to bless the food and forget the farmworker."
This Mother’s Day, pray that mothers everywhere would be treated with dignity. And sign the petition to help make that possibility real for mothers picking in the Florida tomato fields.
Learn more about the PC(USA)’s support for the Coalition of Immokalee Workers and the Campaign for Fair Food.
The Rev. Noelle Damico
Associate for Fair Food Presbyterian Hunger Program Mobile: (631) 371-9877 noelle.damico@pcusa.org https://community.pcusa.org//page.redir?target=http%3a%2f%2fwww.pcusa.org%2ffairfood&srcid=7384&srctid=1&erid=6859473 |
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Dear Friends,
On Mother’s Day we remember the commandment to “honor thy father and mother” and give thanks for the many ways mothers promote well-being within families. But farmworker mothers, who labor in the Florida fields providing food for families across America, struggle to feed their own families. You can help change this.
This Mother’s Day weekend, mothers have come together — from both ends of the supply chain. Farmworker mothers and consumer mothers, bound by their universal desire to provide for their families, are uniting their voices to invite Publix Supermarket to become a part of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers’ Fair Food Program. You can support their call by signing the “Publix: Support farmworker mothers” Petition on change.org .
“On Mother's Day, we ask that you, Publix executives, recognize our affliction and the necessity of just wages for us as farmworkers, who as mothers are responsible for feeding our children," said Immokalee mother Carmen Esquivel.
The Rev. Tricia Dillon Thomas, a Publix customer and Presbyterian minister explains, "As a mother it is important to me that the food I put on the table is planted and harvested while maintaining farmworker dignity. I cannot very well ask the Lord to bless the food and forget the farmworker."
This Mother’s Day, pray that mothers everywhere would be treated with dignity. And sign the petition to help make that possibility real for mothers picking in the Florida tomato fields.
Learn more about the PC(USA)’s support for the Coalition of Immokalee Workers and the Campaign for Fair Food.
The Rev. Noelle Damico
Associate for Fair Food Presbyterian Hunger Program Mobile: (631) 371-9877 noelle.damico@pcusa.org https://community.pcusa.org//page.redir?target=http%3a%2f%2fwww.pcusa.org%2ffairfood&srcid=7384&srctid=1&erid=6859473 |
World Fair Trade Day is this Saturday, May 12. Fair trade provides economic opportunities for farmers, ensures transparency and accountability, and includes standards on gender equity, child labor, working conditions, and caring for the environment. Here are a few ways to get involved on Saturday and beyond:
From a practical and personal standpoint, what does it mean to engage in “Food Justice” work? In what sense is this idea “Justice” used? Are we personally acting from the perspective of our theology, our middle class ethic, our privilege, our sincere desperation or from some other place? I ask these questions to you earnestly. We each come from somewhere and where we come from dictates our encounters with others. We are each guided and blinded by our perspectives, in the same way that saving our poor “little brown brothers” at once tasted of nobility and foulness in the moment of its speaking. If you, as a reader, approach this from some moral obligation you feel compelled to fulfill, this is legitimate. If, for you, this work touches on some pure altruism or serves as a visible badge of liberal humanism, this too is legitimate because it is your own lived reality. No matter where you are coming from, it is necessary to seek out ourselves. How does your perspective guide your relation to the recipients of your Justice? What is true for you? When our particular core truths enter into dialogue, we are made naked and sincere in our work. This is foundational work. This cannot remain invisible if we are to speak together of justice and justice work.
As my seedlings become darling little adolescents with so much potential for producing a bountiful harvest, it is hard to face the global reality that--even in the face of such abundance--roughly one third of the food produced worldwide for human production is lost or wasted. But instead of getting lost in the numbers or bemoaning the failures of humanity, one next step requires us to ask what are we going to do about it?
A few weeks ago the National Slow Food Congress convened in Louisville to talk food at their biennial conference. The 150 participants came from all over the country to slow things down for a few days and discuss the praxis of slow sustainable food systems. The program included opening remarks from Mayor Greg Fischer who spoke of the progress of his “Healthy Hometown” initiative and encouraged others to join in the fight.
Fresh Stop director Karyn Moskowitz, organizer Nathaniel Spencer and VISTA Arianna King spoke to the Slow Food Congress on the Food Justice tour about the importance of making slow, healthy, sustainably grown food available to ALL individuals, through the process of cultivating community leaders and educating community members about the importance of healthy eating. 
...a growing “domestic fair trade” movement aims to formally recognize and reward farms that are working to address social justice. The Agricultural Justice Project (AJP) has developed a set of fair labor guidelines under the Food Justice Certified label, which was born out of dissatisfaction with the US National Organic Program’s failure to address workers’ dignity and rights... While more than 70 Canadian farms are Food Justice Certified, only eight in the United States have received certification. There is now a burgeoning effort to bring the label to California, with Santa Cruz County-based strawberry grower Swanton Berry Farm among those leading the way. 
I met Nat Turner, a former New York City public-school teacher, in New Orleans in November, 2010 surrounded by mountains of compost, beautiful vegetables and many volunteers and budding farmers. Nat moved to New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward on Thanksgiving Day, 2008. He didn’t know anything about gardening — “I could barely keep a cactus alive” — but he had a vision to start an urban farm that would be a vehicle for educating and empowering the neighborhood’s youth. He’d been making service trips to the Big Easy with students, but he wanted an opportunity to dig deeper, literally and figuratively, into the city’s revitalization. 
