Happy New Year, everyone!
We're excited to make 2011 a very GreenLeaf-y year, and need your help to do it. Youth Agri/Cultural intern and GreenLeaf board member Grecia Saenz wrote this letter, asking for your support:
Dear friend,
I come from a family of cultivators. My mom started working the fields at age 8. She planted corn, beans and pumpkins. Over the course of her teenage years, her family depended on her and her smaller sisters to work in harsh fields with no shoes or tools.
While my mom grew up in an environment with little but organic food, I was raised in a fast food metropolis. The meals were made fast and cost so little. My mother wasn’t accustomed to that food so she avoided going to restaurants. She was, however, animated about so much food available anytime of the year and for so little.
In 10th grade, I watched Food Inc. Learning where my food came from and who made it angered me. The produce is genetically engineered and the farm animals are raised in their own waste. But what hurt me the most was to see how the undocumented immigrants were treated. My mother worked in a farm where pesticides were used. The company would spray them while the immigrants worked. Many of the workers (including my mom) got sick. That this abuse was being practiced in the United States was wicked.
I wanted to fight this injustice but didn’t know how. In early weeks of June 2010 I was told that GreenLeaf was accepting new people. I was thrilled at the opportunity to join and spent a few days volunteering at GreenLeaf. I was an official employee a week later. Since then I have made new friends and learned more about food justice. I changed my eating habits and started educating my family about where the food we eat comes from.
I am ecstatic that GreenLeaf is expanding and creating a relationship with the communities around it. Being an important element in its success gives me something to be proud of. I hope that it grows into something much bigger escalating to different states and eventually to different countries. GreenLeaf reaches out to the youth in low-income neighborhoods. We educate people about the food they are eating and what they can do to eat healthier. We have participated with other organizations like Seed to Seed and taught them about the farm.
Building a relationship with our community and others allows us to expand. Our goal is to help people have access to healthy and organic food. To keep our little organization up and running we need donations. Please contribute to our farm and the youth in it and become a fighter against food injustice. Sincerely,
Grecia Saenz
Please donate to GreenLeaf today! We don't have web contributions set up yet, so please contact us at GreenLeafDenver@gmail.com to learn how.
There is a lot of injustice in the agricultural and animal foods industry today and the use of carcinogenic pesticides is still rampant, even while workers are in the field. The re-energizing of the organic movement since the industrialization of such processes is a wonderful thing. Some farmers are even finding that although the overhead cost may be higher, in the end they are coming out on top economically because of the way organic products can use integrated growing which is healthier for the soil and there is a market for these products again.
ReplyDeleteGrecia, you are such an inspiration taking your gentle, concerned nature and putting it towards a cause that both sides of your family and your extended/adopted family has endured. I'm so happy to see you doing this with your energy.
Much Love,
Harmony