Hi Friends! It's that time again, that time when I ask you to please support Student Action with Farmworkers' important work that brings students and farmworkers together to learn about each other’s lives, share resources and skills, improve conditions for farmworkers, and build diverse coalitions working for social change.

The Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation is matching any new donation or increase in donation. Even more reason to give. . . . and help SAF continue to tell farmworker stories in words and pictures!

I'm hoping to raise $1,000 for this year's Farmworker Awareness Campaign by August 20. Help me to do it! Thank you, Molly Renda and Marc Maximov, for breaking the ice! And really appreciate your support, Baby Brother, Deb "Of My Heart" Wong, High School Lives On (Happily) in Anne O'Brien, Dearest Minnafish, Most Wonderful Leighfish, Julie "Cannon" Chappell (you'll have to ask me), Sweet Anonymous Friend, Liz "Lapping It" Casey, my very own KC Cuzzin, the lawfirm FERGUSSON, WHITE, & OXENHAM (and Boughen), Tory "GUNH" Jeffay, Alan "Big Star" DuBois, Frank "The Original Rocker" Konhaus, Jimmy "Double Thumbs" Fountain, Dr. David "An Eye for Corn and Mullet" Cecelski, Dirk "Save the Day" Philipsen, and Kathy "8/27 Means Meatloaf" Hall Willet. THANK YOU FOR PUSHING ME OVER THE GOAL LINE, one and all.

Student Action with Farmworkers (SAF) uses money raised from individuals to conduct outreach to students and farmworkers; provide training, stipends, and scholarships for interns, fellows, students organizers, and youth; share documentaries and presentations with the general public, and provide a living wage and full benefits to their staff. SAF envisions a world where consumers are more aware of where their food comes from, who grows it, harvests it, and packages it, and the conditions of its production. So how to share that vision and engage communities and create greater understanding?

Through documentary work, for one. "Each summer since 1992, SAF has given students an opportunity to work alongside farmworkers in the rural South. Each student spends 10 weeks working full-time at community-based organizations, and most students also complete a documentary project based on the life of an individual worker they meet in the course of their summer. After the experience is over, many students say that doing documentary work was the most compelling part of their SAF experience; many realize that the chance to make art out of someone’s life is a sacred and rare thing, something that may transform the listener as well as the storyteller."

And there's what happens to us, in turn, when we hear and see these stories. The Center for Documentary Studies collaborated with SAF on the Nuestras Historias, Nuestros Sueños/Our Stories, Our Dreams project, which resulted in an exhibition and publication, which you can take a look at here. 

Please help sustain these relationships that benefit us all. 

SAF's grassroots fundraising goal is to raise $23,000 through online fundraising and house parties!

SAF uses money raised from individuals to:

• conduct outreach to students and farmworkers,
• provide training, stipends, and scholarships for our interns, students organizers, and youth,
• share documentaries and presentations with the general public, and
• provide a living wage and full benefits to our staff

Check out our online fundraisers' campaign pages and donate here!

Alexa Dilworth

Amanda Soltes

Andrea Kells

Jonathan Kirsch

Nayely Perez Huerta

Patrick Stawski & Gus Curran

Quirina Vallejos

Ryan Nilsen

Sandy Preiss

Victor Canales Gamino