NFWM is a great organization. I am former staff, volunteer, partner organization, and donor. NFWM provides excellent information to the broader community about getting involved in the farmworker movement and provides great support to many different farmworker organizations. I am proud to have worked so closely with NFWM!
I have volunteered at events for the past several years with NFWM in support of the farmworkers in North Carolina. They are true to their mission and respond to the farmworkers’ needs when they’re called upon. I’m impressed with how much they can do with not a lot of resources. Que viva NFWM!
Excellent collaborators. Many in the farmworker rights movement can look to NFWM for campaign support and assistance in educating the general public about the important labor rights issues that farmworkers face. I wish that all unions had the same type of support that the NFWM provides to the farmworker unions.
Interning with the National Farm Worker Ministry while I was in divinity school taught me so much about justice, my faith, and the often unseen human costs of our food system. The organization fills a unique and extremely important niche in connecting faith communities with farmworker organizations and mobilizing them to support of farmworker-led justice campaigns. They help challenge people of faith like myself to think seriously about the social implications of our various traditions' religious teachings and connect them with opportunities to build relationships with workers and join in with their struggle to create a more fair system for all.
The farmworker support group of my church (Eno River UU Fellowship) started working with the National Farm Worker Ministry in 1999, and have been supported by the NFWM ever since. NFWM staff organized trips to farm labor camps -- no easy task! -- , so that people could see for themselves, could talk with farmworkers. The NFWM clearly stated that their focus was on empowerment of farmworkers, not social service for farmworkers. So, for example, the NFWM was instrumental in organizing faith communities in NC to support the Mt. Olive Pickle boycott -- in support of the farmworker organization FLOC -- that eventually resulted in a first-ever contract between the NC Growers Association and H2A farmworkers through the workers' union, the Farm Labor Organizing Committee. Through those 15 years, the NFWM support has been unwavering, their staff dedicated to bringing together people and organizations of all faiths to recognize how we might all benefit if farmworkers' human rights were truly recognized.
National Farm Worker Ministry provides a needed voice for those who are often invisible in our culture, farm and field workers. I volunteer at NFWM because I believe in their vision and outreach. From building relationships with workers to sharing their stories through outreach campaigns, NFWM provides the connections between the lives of workers to those of us who may not have heard their stories. I have worked in the office and marched in demonstrations so others can “see” the need for compassion and change. National Farm Worker Ministry IS one of the great non-for profits
Scripture reminds us "...by their deeds you will know them", and in common parlance I say the NFWM "walks the walk!" The National Farm Worker Ministry stands in solidarity with farm worker organizations across the country in their struggle for just wages and working conditions. The Ministry never leads or initiate an action; rather it is led by farm workers and their organizations. The Ministry staff keeps its 30+ member organizations informed of farm worker campaigns and offers effective avenues for participating in those campaigns. Member organizations have been given the privilege of lobbying legislators, speaking at share holders' meetings, contacting CEO's of corporations and banks, as well as marching, fasting and praying. I am grateful that the Ministry has offered my Community clear pathways to fulfill its mission of working for justice and acting for peace.
Carolyn Jaramillo
The National Farm Worker Ministry stands in solidarity with those who harvest the produce of our fields and thus help to bring safe, healthy food to our tables. Taking its lead from many thousands of immigrant farm workers themselves, NFWM has long struggled with them for fair wages, safe working and living conditions, and respect for their human rights. NFWM does this by calling on the efforts of its 30-plus faith-based member organizations to mobilize their respective constituencies in support of justice for farm workers and their basic right to organize without fear of retaliation.
Right after I was ordained a priest I accepted Cesar Chavez' invitation to come to the Coachella Valley in California to stand with the farm workers in the picket line as they fought for better wages and working conditions. I witnessed the danger faced by our nation's harvesters from both oppressive law enforcement and from 300 pounders with chains physically threatening the picketers, be they men, women, or children (not to mention clergy!) My act as an individual priest was no doubt helpful to Cesar and the farm workers whose lives I shared that day. What is infinitely better is the organized action of all who are engaged with the National Farm Worker Ministry each and every day to finally treat as sisters and brothers those who work so hard under continually wretched conditions to give us our daily produce.
The NFWM is the premier national, faith-based organization that supports farm workers' efforts to form unions and their struggles to improve conditions in the fields. Over the decades, NFWM has stood with farm workers on the picket lines and in the fields, and in front of stores to inform owners, managers, and consumers about farm worker realities. If you eat today, thank a farm worker AND stand with them by supporting NFWM.
In a culture that says "greed is good" and exalts consumerism, Nat. Farm Worker Ministry is refreshingly different. It enacts and embodies faithfulness, prophetic servanthood. NFWM supports farm-worker-led efforts to get decent wages and better lives. It does that by gnerating knowledgeable, motivated consumer support in urban and suburban faith communites that often wouldn't otherwise notice farm workers' plight. I've been involved with the organization for over 40 years. I've seen how, on spartan budgets, a small but dedicated staff and lots of volunteers have made a difference over and over again. Ask United Farm Workers or Farm Labor Organizing Committee or Coalition of Immokalee Workers. NFWM is effective and doesn't give up. There are lots of "ministries" that seem to exist just to receive money. NFWM is the complete opposite - it continues to pour itself out in the pursuit of social and economic justice for farm workers. Hasta La Victoria! Si Se Puede!
