The past year has been among the most trying in living memory. The devastating impact of COVID-19 crashes in waves as the countries around the world continue to face surging death tolls and a painfully insufficient supply of life-saving vaccines. Predictably, the brunt of that impact has been borne disproportionately by communities already living at the edge of survival before the pandemic, communities like Immokalee.
But over the course of the last year, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers and the Fair Food Program have, once again, served as a bulwark against the worst effects of the pandemic for Florida’s farmworker community. Beyond broadcasting life-saving information on the radio, sewing masks, creating popular educational materials, and handing out PPE in farmworker neighborhoods across Immokalee, we also harnessed the power of the Fair Food Program’s relationships and agreements in order to create COVID-19 protocols that have kept workers safe on the job.
Today, Day 6 of our 10-day campaign, leaders from the CIW bring you their stories from the frontlines of the COVID-19 response – along with the invitation to become a Fair Food Sustainer!