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Memorial Service for 17-Year-Old Farm Worker; First Heat-Related Death This Year

LODI    A Mass for Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez, 17, will be celebrated at St. Anne’s Church, 215 W. Walnut St., Lodi, CA.

Maria  collapsed on May 14 while employed by Merced Farm Labor. She was working in a vineyard owned by West Coast Grape Farming in Farmington, just outside Stockton. She was in a coma for two days before dying on May 16.

Maria’s death is the first heat-related death of the year. She had been working in temperatures that reached 100 degrees that day. Initial reports indicate Maria had a body temperature of 108 degrees.

After the Mass, Maria’s body will be sent home to Oaxaca where her widowed mother will receive her daughter’s body.

“We can use the grief that fills our hearts with sorrow today,  to tell our governor that the growers and the labor contractors must honor the law—so more innocent farm workers like Maria don’t die unnecessarily,” said United Farm Workers President Arturo Rodriguez. “We can force the employers to treat our loved ones as the important human beings they are.”

Memorial service:

When: 11 a.m., Wednesday, May 28

Where: St. Anne’s Church, 215 W. Walnut St., Lodi 95240
    
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