Hello everyone! Thank you for visiting my fundraising page. My name is Francisco da Silva, and this summer I have received the opportunity to work alongside Student Action with Farmworkers (SAF) as an intern for the Hispanic Federation working directly with immigration and lobbying! SAF is a nonprofit organization that seeks to unite students, recent graduates, and community members to advocate for farm workers through a variety of different approaches including health, education, workers’ rights, immigration, and much more! SAF has a vision of connecting inspired individuals and farm workers through mutual sharing of knowledge, experience, and overall providing access to necessary resources for farm workers here in the southeast!

It is a fact that some of the most essential work can also be some that goes the most unseen, as is typically the case with farm workers everywhere. With the US farmwork labor force consisting mainly of immigrant and migrant workers, their lack of access to necessary resources is compounded by the current political climate, but also further logistical struggles like lack of language skills and general unfamiliarity with the function of our local, federal, and state systems. This is where the SAF interns come in: we are here to help bridge this gap and do what we can through the variety of programs that we offer. Being the son of immigrant parents with backgrounds in agricultural work, I understand how backbreaking this type of work can be and how diffult generally migrant and immigrant labor can be. The isolating nature of low-level work, especially as it relates to farm work in rural areas, can make access to resources very difficult, stunting connection and placing families in a bubble of precarity. With much of these resources being vital to the stability of any working family, this is why the work SAF does is so important!

Through my personal experience, and my time studying at U of SC, I have always dreamed of helping those in need, especially relating to something I am very familiar with like the migrant and immigrant experience. Thankfully to SAF I will finally be able to give back to a community that is integral to the function of our society via my position; You can too! Through helping support SAF you will further allow us to continue our goal of advocating for the agricultural community and bring awareness to the problems that our most important workforce face!

I hope you will be able to donate, and I am counting on you! Thank you very much. 😊

To Learn more visit https://saf-unite.org/

My goal is $750 by May 26^th. To reach this goal I am looking for:

10 donations of $10

10 donations of $20

8 donations of $25.

5 donations of $50.

Reminder: all funds donated will go directly to SAF’s Into the Fields program to support future interns who are looking to invest their skills in helping farm workers and their families.