Dear friends,
Over the past three months, the CIW, working hand in hand with the Alliance for Fair Food, has shaped the national conversation on the critical role of farmworkers as vulnerable essential workers. Through national outlets including the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, and the Associated Press, the voice of Immokalee’s farmworker community has rung out from coast to coast. And thanks to those efforts, we have been able to bring concrete, life-saving healthcare resources to our community.
But none of this crucial organizing could have happened without you. Your support, as a donor and ally, is critical to our movement. Sign up to become a Fair Food Sustainer today!
The CIW’s campaign calling for urgently-needed health care resources for the women and men who harvest our food was answered by tens of thousands of every-day consumers.
Forty-two thousand people have signed the CIW’s Change.org petition, calling on Florida Governor DeSantis to meet the needs of Immokalee. Their voices were bolstered by over 2,200 supporters who shared the petition on Facebook and nearly 400 people who called the Governor’s office in Tallahassee to express their support directly.
Organizational support for the CIW’s campaign was equally strong. Over 230 national and Florida-based organizations have signed an open letter urging DeSantis to protect farmworkers’ health in Immokalee, including the Council of Florida Medical School Deans, Florida Public Health Association, human rights leaders like Ethel Kennedy and Human Rights Watch, and national religious institutions like United Church of Christ and National Farm Worker Ministry.
And countless donors like you also stepped up in the past three months to provide crucial financial support to fuel the CIW’s organizing efforts.
But there is still a long road ahead. Victory remains far off, as yesterday’s surge of positive COVID-19 cases in Immokalee brought the number of total cases close to 1,200, the second highest case count by zip code in the state and far higher than many larger coastal cities.
We can’t do this without you. We need your help to sustain our call for urgently-needed protections for farmworkers. You can help ensure that farmworkers and their allies continue to advocate for live-saving protections for farmworkers in the era of COVID-19 by becoming a Fair Food Sustainer.