Bikes, toys and glasses for farmworker families; tacos and music for donors

The Farmworker Caravan hosted a Taco Tuesday event at History Park on June 16 to collect donations and supplies for farmworker families, featuring music, food, and local vendors. Founder Darlene Tenes aims to coordinate health and wellness organizations to better serve farmworkers, who face low wages, deportation threats, and language barriers. The event gathered bicycles, eyeglasses, and toys, with support from groups like the Lions Club.

Getting your Trinity Audio //trinityaudio.ai player ready... Editor’s note: This story is part of the annual Mosaic Journalism Program for Bay Area high school students, an intensive course in journalism. Students in the program report and photograph stories under the guidance of professional journalists. Music, food and local vendors brought energy to History Park on June 16 as members of the community gathered for the Farmworker Caravan Taco Tuesday. While visitors enjoyed coffee, live music and sales of crafts such as handmade earrings and greeting cards, the event’s mission was to attract donations and supplies to support and recognize farmworker families. One of Farmworker Caravan’s priorities is to improve coordination between service providers. “What we’re trying to do right now is coordinate all these health and medical and wellness organizations,” Darlene Tenes, the event’s founder, said. “Some do mental health, some do medical health, some do only hearing or vision. Nobody has had a coordinated schedule. We want to bring all these organizations together so they can reach more people.” Farmworkers are often called the backbone of the country’s food system, yet their stories frequently go unheard. Through the Farmworker Caravan, community members may support farmworker families and recognize the challenges they face. Tenes, of San Jose, said the Farmworker Caravan’s event was focused on collecting donations for farmworker families such as bicycles, eyeglasses and toys. Although Farmworker Caravan does not provide health services directly, it works closely with organizations that do. Among them are the Lions Club, Salud Para La Gente and Catholic Charities. Representatives of the Lions Club attended the event to collect eyeglasses and share information about services available for farmworkers. “They don’t have any opportunity to go to the eye doctor,” Tenes said. “There’s a lot of people that don’t have insurance, not just farmworkers. The farmworkers mostly do not have any insurance at all.” To help address those needs, the Lions Club operates a mobile unit that provides vision, dental and hearing screenings, bringing services directly to communities that may have limited access to care. Tenes said that farmworkers continue to face a wide range of difficulties, such as extremely low wages, the threat of deportation, housing instability and language barriers, since some of them speak indigenous languages neither English nor Spanish as their primary language. She said these struggles become even more severe during times when food production slows, making it harder for families to meet their basic needs. Among the volunteers at the event was Julieta Tzul, 19, who was helping to sell items handmade by Tenes to raise funds for the farmworkers. Besides earrings and custom greeting cards, Tzul also was selling hot chocolate made from a recipe created by Tenes. Tzul described the items as something people might buy themselves for a little self-love or to give as gifts. For Tzul, volunteering is more than just fundraising. “It’s a very caring environment,” she said. “It’s definitely somewhere where you feel like you don’t need to impress anyone and everybody is equal.” Next to Tzul was Maria Perez, 52, another volunteer at the event. Perez was displaying mercado bags, candles, tumblers and succulent gardens that were being gifted to people who donated to sponsor one or more farmworkers. “I usually do the tamales in the winter time,” she said, referring to another Farmworker Caravan fundraiser. “My mom does the cooking, so I volunteer,” she said. For Perez, the most rewarding part of volunteering is seeing the impact it has. “My favorite part is when you do stuff like that, it warms you,” she said. “It makes you happy, and you know that you’re helping make somebody smile. You can make a difference for somebody.” Tenes also highlighted the importance of educating people about farmworkers and their life experiences. “Everything that we eat has been touched by them,” she said. “There is not a single person who isn’t connected to agriculture.” One of the moments that has stayed with Tenes throughout her years of advocacy involves conversations with farmworkers about sexual assault in the workplace. One agency that Farmworker Caravan partners with, Salud Para La Gente, which is based in Watsonville, provides health services for the survivors. Tenes said the agency connects farmworkers with services, which helps a broader community. “We were doing it for the campesinos,” Tenes said, using the Spanish word for farmworkers. “But it is going to help more people too.” The message Taco Tuesdays and its volunteers and supporters want to send to the farmworkers, she said, is simply: “We appreciate you.” Ashlin Sanchez is a member of the class of 2028 at San Jose High School. J.R. McMinn is a member of the class of 2027 at Del Mar High School in San Jose.