Pie for the People – Santa Cruz will hold a community pie potluck to benefit Center for Farmworker Families on Sunday, April 30, 2023 from 1:00-3:00 PM at the Homeless Garden Project Farm on the westside of Santa Cruz (Shaffer Road at Delaware Ave).
Bring a $5+ donation per person, a sweet or savory vegetarian pie, and if you can, a reusable plate & utensils. (Bringing a pie is not required, but an added donation of a few dollars is suggested.) This is a family friendly event.
The Center for Farmworker Families–a non-profit organization dedicated to education, advocacy, and support for farmworker families–has been on the frontlines of providing relief to the flood devastated families of Pajaro, many of whom are farmworkers. The Center holds regular distributions of food, household goods, baby items, and toys. The most recent one after the storms brought in over 1,000 families in need.
Dr. Ann Lopez, the founder and executive director of Center for Farmworker Families notes that the state of California is responsible for producing 1/3 of the nation’s vegetables and nearly 2/3 of the nation’s fruits and nuts; including 90% of the strawberries grown in the U.S. She says, “California’s Corporate Agribusiness is an annual $50 billion per 
year industry. Although over one-half million farmworkers are responsible for this enormous food supply, in California, the world’s 5th largest economy, they remain an invisible, impoverished, voiceless underclass.”
Donations from the Pie for the People event will go towards getting supplies for the next distribution. Dr. Ann says, “The bottom line is that we will do everything we can to assist Pajaro families in reestablishing their pre-flood lives while continuing to advocate for the overall improvement of the treatment of farmworkers including adequate pay and safe, affordable housing.”
Pie for the People-Santa Cruz is an intergenerational group of DIY community activists that host fundraising pie potlucks to support local nonprofits. Since January of 2015, Pie for the People-Santa Cruz has raised over $19,000 to feed the homeless, support women with cancer, keep a community garden going, and buy supplies for a tutoring center/food bank. They host fun, family friendly, community building events focused on pie.
Judit Camacho, a Pie for the People organizer and co-executive director of Life Lab says, “In California over 90% of the farmworkers come from Mexico and 6 out of 10 are indigenous. These are the communities in Pajaro Valley, and some are my family members. I invite us all to bring more awareness to the racial and economic inequities of our food system and to support the important work of the Center for Farmworker Families. We can collectively dignify the labor and the communities that feed us all. ¡Si se Puede!”
Another pie organizer Jenny Kurzweil says, “At Pie for the People – Santa Cruz we maintain a hyper-local sense of activism and most importantly, a focus on community building and joy. We are working to create change here at home with the hope that our actions will ripple outward…one pie at a time.”
More information: http://www.pieforthepeople-santacruz.org
