Stanislaus County allocates $1 million toward helping documented, undocumented farmworkers

Stanislaus County Supervisor Channce Condit called it “an historic step forward.”

His colleague, Terry Withrow, said it was “very good stuff.”

Maggie Mejía, a lifelong advocate for the Latino community, was overjoyed.

“It fills my heart with joy because this is the week that we celebrate César Chávez,” said Mejía, referring to the farmworker leader’s state and national holiday on Friday.

The three were talking about Tuesday’s unanimous vote by the five-member Stanislaus County Board of Supervisors to spend $1 million in COVID relief funds to establish the first farmworker resource center in the county.

Stanislaus is just the third county in the state to take advantage of state funding to establish a center to help documented and undocumented farmworkers with services ranging from legal services to utility assistance and rental assistance.

“This is going to be for undocumented farmworkers, and is an historic step forward and progress for Stanislaus County,” said Condit, the board chairman, during an interview with Vida en el Valle five days before the vote.

Jorge de Nava, CEO of the Central Valley Opportunity Center, said the 42-year-old non-profit will hire up to eight full-time workers to staff farmworker resource centers in downtown Modesto and Patterson.

“We feel we’ve had these resource centers for decades now, so the investment is really scaling up what we’re doing already,” said de Nava.

At Tuesday’s board meeting, Condit noted the significance of the supervisors’ action.

“There is not a single county within the Central Valley that has made this type of investment in our undocumented and our farmworkers,” he said.

María Arevalo, a farmworker advocate, agreed.

“I’m so happy to see this board addressing the needs of undocumented farmworkers. As you know, 60 to 80% are undocumented,” said Arevalo. “They pay their taxes like everybody else.”

The board actually took two votes related to funding the CVOC for its work. It also voted 5-0 to provide $1 million to support workforce development programs for farmworkers in the county. This would range from classes in welding and forklift certification to Microsoft Office certification.

Condit, talking with Vida en el Valle, said the plan originally called for $1 million for workforce development, but changed after meeting with Latino community leaders.

“Whatever the (Latino) community needs the most of is where attention will be,” he said.

During Tuesday’s board session, no one spoke against the supervisors’ decision.

“If you want to talk to anyone in our Latino leadership circle a year ago, if we said we’d be allocating $1 million for farmworkers, everybody would have looked at me with disbelief,” Condit said.

“It’s progress.”

Despite no opposition, some supporters asked the supervisors to provide more funding.

“We need that million dollars every year, not just for two years,” said community advocate Miguel Donoso. “We know the importance of the farmworkers. If you go without the farmworkers in the Valley, there will be no jobs, no industry.”

Aaron Anguiano, a farmworker-turned-lawyer and president of the Latino Community Roundtable, said recent storms have caused problems.

“They’re out of jobs, and this is both documented and undocumented,” said Anguiano. “These storms just exacerbated pre-existing conditions that have been in our farmworker community for years.”

Anguiano said the farmworker resource center “is a step forward, and we need to continue to engage with you and the community.”

“I’m really excited about this because I think it’s the first time I see that we’re doing something really good for the community and farmworkers,” said Anguiano.

United Farm Workers President Teresa Romero, speaking at a food distribution in Planada on March 25, backed the action.

“This workforce is the backbone of agriculture, and if we don’t have them we’re not going to have secure food,” said Romero. “Let’s treat them as the important workers and the essential workers that they are. Every county, every state and the federal government need to step up.”

Supervisor Mani Grewal called the farmworker role in agriculture “huge.”

“If you were to ask them, they would say they want to better themselves with getting skilled, getting trained,” said Grewal.

His colleague, Buck Condit, noted that Stanislaus County’s agricultural output is better than that of 27 states, and fifth in California. The two Condits on the board are cousins.

“This is a perfect opportunity to invest in our workers, our ag workers here in Stanislaus County who make us that powerful,” he said.

Channce Condit said his goal is to advocate for additional funding in the future to keep the farmworker resource center afloat.

“They are a vital pillar of our local economy. I mean, we have over a $1 billion ag economy in Stanislaus County, and the critical part of that economy is our farmworker,” he said. “There’s no way we would be as successful as we are without the farmworker.”