From the young (and quite nattily attired) …

to the… well, young, too, really, but somewhat older, White Plains Fair Food allies grabbed their protest signs and took the street outside the Trader Joe’s store with a message of justice.

The very busy intersection provided the opportunity to reach a large audience with that message, and judging by the number of honks they got, Westchester County will be a new hotspot in the Campaign for Fair Food!

After the action, a sizeable delegation went to deliver a letter to the Manager, who insisted on talking outside of the store. The Rev. Jeff Geary of White Plains Presbyterian Church introduced the group and their concern for the conditions facing farmworkers in Florida. The Manager swiftly dismissed the delegation and turned to go inside, claiming, like his counterpart in New York City, that he had a store to run. However, when numerous members of the delegation made it clear that they were customers of this very Trader Joe’s, he decided to stay for just a moment more before hurrying away.

From White Plains it was on to Providence, where the visit started with a morning meeting with members of Fuerza Laboral, a workers center in Central Falls, RI. After an animated discussion about the Campaign for Fair Food and the connections between the work of the two organizations, members of Fuerza Laboral signed postcards and promised to join us for that afternoon’s Stop & Shop action. One member of Fuerza Laboral even presented the Tour crew with 3 poems he had written about the struggle for justice.

But before the crew and their Providence allies could head to the Stop & Shop action, there were a couple of errands to do along the way. While Trader Joe’s doesn’t have a store in Providence proper, there is one in nearby Warwick, RI. A group of allies from Providence Fair Food and the Environmental Justice League of RI joined the Tour crew to deliver a letter to the Trader Joe’s. The Manager listened intently to the local consumers who explained their desire for Trader Joe’s to work with the CIW. It was an amicable exchange and the group left confident that at least some people in the world of Trader Joe’s want to do the right thing. Given the CIW’s experience in other campaigns — where the voices inside companies supporting the principles of Fair Food were at least as important as those protesting outside the stores in ultimately moving the companies to sign a Fair Food agreement — the Tour crew was confident that those Trader Joe’s employees who support farm labor justice will also ultimately be heard and the company itself will do the right thing.

And speaking of companies not doing the right thing… The other errand on the Tour crew’s list was to stop by and lend support to the Verizon workers who are out on strike. The strip mall where the Trader Joe’s store was located was also home to a Verizon store, and the crew was able to join some of the 45,000 Verizon workers along the East Coast who are in the middle of a hard-fought strike.

Then it was on to Stop & Shop, where a small delegation delivered a manager letter before the protest began. As the delegation members reported to the group during the action, several men in suits that seemed to be from Stop & Shop’s corporate headquarters were waiting for the group and escorted them outside to wait for the manager, who received the letter but had minimal comment. The delegation then joined dozens of members of the Providence community who came to join the action on the sidewalk of the busy street out in front of Stop & Shop, including the group of high schoolers, pictured here above, from the Environmental Justice League of Rhode Island, who brought their own banner with a very clear message that caught the attention of customers entering and exiting the parking lot…

… and drummers from the Providence community whose beats kept spirits high throughout the day.

Within minutes, however, a downpour began that would last for much of the protest. The torrents of rain didn’t deter allies from Providence Fair Food who kept arriving in droves until the crowd swelled to over 50.

The numbers included a large contingent from Fuerza Laboral, who also braved the rain to join us after the morning’s exchange, and with whom the CIW and the Campaign for Fair Food are building a relationship that will no doubt continue to grow long after Stop & Shop and Trader Joe’s sign their Fair Food agreements.

Check back soon for more from the road. Next stop: Worcester and Boston!