Statement by Diana Tellefson,
Executive Director, UFW Foundation
Re: Governor Schwarzenegger Appropriating
$100,000 to UFW Foundation for Outreach Services
February 13, 2007
The UFW Foundation strongly supports Governor’s recent funding announcements showing his support to farm workers and their families.
The freeze has left thousands of farm workers and their families – jobless and in need of help in the San Joaquin Valley.
The $100,000 will go directly toward outreach services.
Other monies are being made available to help farm workers and their families, but those programs are useless, if the farm workers do not know how to access them.
That’s where the UFW Foundation and this funding come in – to help organize and increase awareness among farm workers and their families.
Some examples of where money will go are:
• Toward training workers to mobilize others to attend meetings, town halls and forums to help increase awareness of the programs and services being made available to them
• Toward organizing citrus farm worker meetings to ensure farm workers have a voice and are heard.