This week – March 24th through 31st – is National Farmworker Awareness Week. This is a time for us to recognize the two to three million men, women and children who perform often dangerous and backbreaking work to ensure our nation’s abundant, low-cost food supply. There are many ways that your congregation can take part, including:
- Organize a long-sleeved shirt drive. The Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs is hosting a national long-sleeve drive to help farmworkers avoid exposure to pesticides. There are ten drop-off locations in North Carolina.
- Attend a local event. A national calendar is listed here.
- Invite a panel of farmworkers to speak to your congregation. Contact jennie@ncchurches.org for more information.
- Organize a teach-in or presentation about farmworker issues. You can use farmworker factsheets to create a presentation.
- Take up a love offering and donate it to the Episcopal Farmworker Ministry or other local farmworker advocacy group.
- Include farmworkers in your worship service. The National Farmworker Ministry has a number for faith-based resources including prayers, litanies and sample sermons.
- Use our Bible Study curriculum, Hands of Harvest, Hearts of Justice, with your Sunday School or other group.
Proverbs 12:23 states, “The field of the poor may yield much food, but it is swept away through injustice.” Farmworker Awareness Week is an opportunity to make our food system more just. Try to commit to doing something this week to honor the critical contributions that farmworkers make to our economy and to our society.
The additional, powerful action that congregations could take in North Carolina is to join farmworkers and their organization FLOC — the Farm Labor Organizing Committee — in pressuring RJ Reynolds to make the policy changes in its tobacco supply chain that would actually allow tobacco farmworkers a voice, and would ultimately improve living and working conditions for 30,000 farmworkers. The way to do that right now: commit to attending FLOC’s “March on Reynolds” — the 7th year that farmworker supporters will attend RJ Reynolds shareholders meeting: May 7th; RJR Headquarters in Winston-Salem. For more information: https://www.facebook.com/events/383153628536172/