AWAC Emergency Needs Fund
The mission of the Agricultural Workers Advocacy Coalition [AWAC] is to serve as advocates for temporary agricultural workers on the Eastern Shore of Virginia.
The Agricultural Workers Advocacy Coalition (AWAC) on the Eastern Shore of Virginia has an Emergency Needs Fund to support temporary agricultural workers’ loss of wages due to injury or retaliation. Dos Santos administers the funds.
Submitting this application is not a guarantee of receiving funds. We have limited funds and make decisions on a case-by-case basis. We will let you know our decision as soon as possible.
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Our supermarkets are lined with countless fruits and vegetables. From avocados to tomatoes, lemons to lima beans, potatoes of every size and shape, berries of every color, our choices for fresh produce are limitless. We are blessed with incomparable abundance. The United States is indeed the land of milk and honey. And yet, most of us don’t know how nature’s bounty reaches our tables.
Every year, tens of thousands of migrant farm workers from Mexico and Central America are granted H-2a temporary work visas. In the Eastern Shore, they are the lifeblood of our economy, performing the jobs no one else is willing to do. They sustain us, yet suffer in the shadows. Their days are long and difficult. They are exposed to the fumes of bleach and pesticides. They toil with few breaks and work in the heat of the sun past sickness and injury. They are forced to meet incredibly unfair quotas in order to get paid. These migrant laborers are isolated and exploited.
And this past harvest season has proven to be even more difficult. Bad weather and a bad harvest have left these workers without pay for days and weeks. When they are not on the fields, they don’t get paid and in what is the cruelest and most unfair predicament of all, they have been going hungry. Without their wages, they can’t send money home for their families and don’t have money to buy food for themselves. The Dos Santos Food Pantry has risen to the challenge and has extended some temporary relief to these workers. The migrant workers have left the shore at this time, some going back home and others moving to the next growing area. But it is time to amp up finances to prepare for their return beginning in April. Let’s not forget them.
La Coalición de Defensa de los Trabajadores Agrícolas en el Eastern Shore de Virginia tiene un Fondo de Necesidades de Emergencia para apoyar la pérdida de salarios de los trabajadores agrícolas temporales debido a lesiones o represalias. Enviar esta solicitud no es una garantía de recibir fondos. Tenemos fondos limitados y la determinación se toma dependiendo del caso; le informaremos nuestra decisión lo antes posible.
La misión de la Coalición de Defensa de los Trabajadores Agrícolas [AWAC] es servir como defensores de los trabajadores agrícolas temporales en la costa este de Virginia. Dos Santos, una organización sin fines de lucro, está administrando los fondos.