Florida Catholic | Migrant Workers Hard Hit By Rising Food, Gas Prices

Migrant workers hit hard by rising food, gas prices

LAURA DODSON | FLORIDA CATHOLIC CORRESPONDENT

Published: 07.03.08

ED FOSTER JR. | FC FILE

PIERSON | Today’s costs of food and gasoline are reflected in numbers other than price tags. In January 2008, the food pantry at St. Peter Parish in DeLand, which serves the San Jose Mission in Pierson – where horticultural farming is the primary industry – provided food to 230 families. Just halfway through June, that number had reached 382.

“We see the poor in here all the time,” explained Gelano Bailey, facility coordinator at St. Peter Parish. “Now there are people who have never come in and asked for food. They cry because they don’t know how to ask. They consider it begging.”

Marco Crisanpo is the coordinator for the Farmworker Association here. The association is a multiethnic organization supporting social change of systems that impoverish farmworkers. Many of the migrant workers here came from Mexico in search of work. Crisanpo said, “A lot of people aren’t working. It’s terrible now. People are being laid off and returning to Mexico because of lack of work.”

A big difference is also being experienced at Operation Hope. The organization started in 1997 in Fellsmere with the purpose of improving conditions of the migrant workers. Founder and director Jesse Zermeno explained, “In the last four weeks we’re seeing a big increase in families who are coming for groceries. We’re seeing an increase especially in white people.”

For the past several years, every Saturday night Operation Hope has provided food estimated at $60 in retail value free to families – an average of 12,000 people per year. At the current rate, Zermeno believes 16,000 people will be helped this year.

“I was empty – completely dry to the penny and the Postal Service (National Association of Letter Carriers) had a food drive and I got enough for one month,” Zermeno said. “As the food comes in, it goes. Next week it can happen again. We go through trends – there is nothing in the warehouse and I worry how I am going to supply the food.”

“The situation is basically unbearable,” said Missionary Father of Our Lady of LaSalette Father Norman Farland, pastor of the Centro Guadalupano Mission in Wahneta. “After the hurricanes of recent years, and in response to the construction boom, many workers switched from picking fruit to lower-level construction businesses. Now with the construction lay off and the termination of the citrus season, a lot of people are looking for new jobs. They’re going farther for jobs, but there’s the reality of the cost of gas and food and medication.”

Father Farland told of a young farmworker who started his own drywall business and gradually hired the men in his extended family. Because of the downturn in the construction industry, he has been forced to gradually lay off each man until now he is the only one working and only a day or two per week. They depend on him and he is trying to support the whole family.

There are glimpses of goodness in these dire straits.

MELANIE L. DODSON | FC
Pallets of fresh green beans donated by Greenline wait outside the Operation Hope coolers for distribution to the farmworker community in Fellsmere. Jesse Zermeno, founder, said, “There are more beans here than I can hand out, so tomorrow I’ll fill up my truck and share this.”

Zermeno explained: “God is providing. The growers in Indian River County are sending big quantities of fresh vegetables – green peppers, lettuce, green beans, cabbages. The Orange County growers have given oranges, tangerines and lemons. It’s awesome what’s going on. I was praying and we’re getting special gifts.” As if in confirmation, while he was talking a truck from the Greenline farm arrived, one-third full with boxes of fresh green beans.

When contacted by the Florida Catholic, Eugene Wolff, Greenline’s purchasing manager explained, “Greenline started in Fellsmere 15 years ago, growing green beans nine months of the year. When we have excess product, we can find a home for it. The challenge is the high cost of fuel. So often we have excess, but don’t have the ability to transport. We have a long relationship with Operation Hope and we try our best to get our trucks there.”

Janira Garza is the mother of three children – 13, 7 and 6. She’s the secretary for Operation Hope and her husband, Gabriel, a local truck driver, is too familiar with how rising gas prices are affecting his work. “It’s unprintable what gas prices are doing to truckers,” Garza stated and then continued, “I remember being able to have $100 and get enough groceries for three weeks. I go through a gallon of milk a day and it’s now $4. I can’t even buy enough.”

Jann Zermeno, wife of Jesse, and Operation Hope co-founder, heads up the educational program, working to improve the literacy of the migrant workers’ children and hopefully break the cycle of poverty. “The children need more food,” she said. “It’s the worst I’ve ever seen it. We provide a morning snack – but for some it’s breakfast. We give them lunch and an afternoon snack also.”

Jesse Zermeno pointed to the stacked boxes of green beans and said, “There are more beans here than I can hand out, so tomorrow I’ll fill up my truck and share this with Daily Bread Soup Kitchen and the Sharing Center and churches like Ascension (Parish) that have a food pantry in Melbourne.”

Wolff concluded, “When one is involved in producing food from the good earth, you hate to see anything go to waste. We know how much love and care goes into growing it.”

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Migrant workers hit hard by rising food, gas prices

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