… Immokalee community preparations are in full swing!

Over the past several weeks we’ve seen Fair Food activists preparing for the upcoming 200-mile march to Publix headquarters in cities from Orlando to Atlanta and beyond. But as we enter the final week before the big kick-off in Ft. Myers this coming Sunday, March 3rd, the real action is in Immokalee, where the farmworker community is mobilizing for the two-week trek with the passion of people who know that they are building a better future for themselves and for their children, and that, in the process, they are taking part in making history.

Art production for the march is in full swing. The picture above is the initial work of sculpting the statue that will be accompanying marchers along every mile of the 200-mile route, with a sand relief sculpture forming the basis for a mold that will eventually take the form of a worker proclaiming the new day for human rights in the fields. Here below is a peek at the next stage in the process (if you want to see the finished product, you’ll just have to join us somewhere along the way!):

Organizing for the march in the farmworker community continues at a breakneck pace, with the annual “Year of the Worker” party outside the CIW headquarters bringing hundreds of workers together for a day of music, information, and mobilization. Here below the CIW’s Gerardo Reyes and Cruz Salucio address the crowd during a break in the music to discuss the march:

Meanwhile, the party provided yet another opportunity for community members to do their part in the production of materials for the march, including this banner, designed and painted by the CIW’s Women’s Group:

The banner reads “We are marching for the future of our families,” and the rays of the sun are the hands of the community’s children. Here below is one of those children clearly proud of her own little hand mark on the banner that her mother and her friends will carry for 200 miles to Publix corporate headquarters:

Finally, we leave you with a special treat from the organizing work going on in Immokalee today as the final countdown begins for the March for Rights, Respect, and Fair Food — a video produced for workers who weren’t around for the first march across the state back in 2000 (the March for Dignity, Dialogue, and a Fair Wage) to learn about the roots of today’s march and the history of the struggle for human rights in Florida’s tomato fields.

[A note: As a worker-to-worker organizing tool, the video is entirely in Spanish. So for those of you who understand Spanish, sit back and enjoy this trip back in time, words and images alike, and for those of you who don’t, don’t miss it, either, because it is infinitely self-explanatory, and a rare inside look at CIW history!]:

 See you soon!