It took a collective effort for FIND Food Bank to design food distributions for farmworkers, said Debbie Espinosa, CEO & President of FIND Food Bank.
Mercado Campesino or “Market for Farmers” is an important collaboration for the desert community. FIND has a long history of direct service, having run mobile markets, currently at 44 community sites, for more than ten years. Grant funding from CAFB allowed the food bank to work specifically with migrant farmworkers in Coachella Valley.
In designing the program, FIND collaborated with local organizations such as Growing Coachella Valley and relied on studies from the California Farmworker Foundation to further understand the needs and barriers of time and distance for the farmworkers. Informed by surveys compiled by CAFB, FIND was able to provide specialty boxes with culturally appropriate food items for its predominantly Hispanic farmworker population.
“As easy as we want to make it sound to design the programs, there’s a lot of different people and organizations that go into it,” said Debbie Espinosa. “It’s a collective effort.”
