The UFW Foundation is proud to present its 2020-2022 Impact Report. As farm worker and immigrant communities were being disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, the UFW Foundation continued its mission to empower the most vulnerable communities by providing food, crucial services, financial assistance and more. In these two years, the UFW Foundation distributed $23 million in emergency relief assistance payments and organized events that helped administered more than 37,000 COVID-19 tests with a total of 125,362 farm workers assisted. Additionally, the UFW Foundation helped 40,307 persons in rural communities receive their COVID-19 vaccinations. Furthermore, more than 2.8 million masks/protective equipment were distributed. During the pandemic, the UFW Foundation also distributed 147,620 food boxes and 247,825 culturally-appropriate meals to families in need.
Additionally, our advocacy work kept pushing for better policies at the local, state and federal level. We advocated for the establishment of a historic U.S. Department of Agriculture $655 million financial assistance program for farm and food workers negatively affected by the pandemic. In doing so, our organization secured a $97.8 million USDA grant to administer this assistance nationwide, in coordination with several other organizations, providing $600 to each eligible farm worker. As we have always done, we continued to advocate for an equitable pathway to legalization for farm workers through the successful passage of the Farm Workforce Modernization Act in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2021 and the introduction of the Affordable and Secure Food Act Senate version in 2022. And, we mobilized a coalition of labor, immigrant, and human rights organizations and urged the Biden administration to conduct a thorough investigation of the H-2A guest worker program after the exposure of human trafficking, slavery, and money laundering abuses in the Georgia “Operation: Blooming Onion” case.
To check out our full Impact report, click below.
