In action after action, Fair Food activists with the New York-based Community/Farmworker Alliance have made creativity their trademark. On Day 4 of the Northeast Tour, several members of the CFA donned Trader Joe’s-style Hawaiian shirts and launched their latest action with an old favorite: Sampling Justice, where consumers are offered a penny in a sample cup and invited to learn about the Campaign for Fair Food.

The CFA has always used all available resources to make its message heard. Here a CFA member turns NYC’s busy sidewalks, this one outside of the Trader Joe’s store near Union Square, into an impromptu billboard for Fair Food.

But on this day, the quick chalk tagging served another important purpose, marking the route for…

… the first annual “Race for Farmworker Justice”!

Yes, in honor of the visit of the Trader Joe’s Northeast Tour to NYC, CFA members put their very own bodies to use in the movement for Fair Food, running 1.6 miles, from the Trader Joe’s store in Chelsea to the Trader Joe’s store near Union Square, in yet another original protest for fair farm labor standards. Anyone who has ever pinned a number on his or her chest at the start of a 5K knows the pride of lining up for a test of will, desire, and commitment among a community of runners.

And Friday’s race through the streets of New York was no different… well, maybe a little different. There was immense pride among the runners, and their commitment and determination was equal to that of any of the tens of thousands who run the New York City marathon every spring. But the fierce competition of a typical race was replaced by a spirit of camaraderie, as the runners took off, carrying tomato picking buckets and protest signs along the entire route.

Cheers from onlookers along the way kept the runners’ spirits high…

… and, despite the summer heat and humidity, their bodies never flagged…

… because this race wasn’t about individual achievement, but about a community of farmworkers and activist coming together to deliver a message to one of the supermarket industry’s biggest brands. And deliver it they did, though, as this photo indicates, the manager (right, Hawaiian shirt) got a little testy when the CIW’s Oscar Otzoy (left) attempted to break through the his initial indifference by describing the day-to-day conditions farmworkers face picking tomatoes in Trader Joe’s supply chain. The photo above comes from an interesting piece on the action and on this revealing moment, which you can find here: “The CIW takes on Trader Joe’s here in New York City” (wordpress.com, 8/8/11)

In the end, though the runners may have been a little worn down from their mid-summer race, their commitment to the cause of Fair Food was stronger than ever, rooted in the clear understanding that the Campaign for Fair Food is a marathon, not a sprint, and that victory — a fairer, more humane food system — would be theirs, because their cause is just.

Check back soon for more from New York and the rest of the Northeast Tour!