After signing safety waivers and selecting work gloves in the Arboretum office, the group headed out to the garden. We took a tour of the garden, seeing all of the different plots of crops, before working for an hour and fifteen minutes. Participants turned and airated soil, pulled weeds, formed new rows, and picked carrots, green onions, kale, cilantro, and papayas. We were even allowed to bring some of the produce home with us!
After this we picked up all of the gloves, shovels, rakes, and hoes and headed back to the office. We regrouped on the porch and for the last thirty minutes of the event, myself and Chris Dudding from FWAF-Apopka led a workshop discussion on how local community gardens act as both an alternative to large Agri-Business, and as a way to show how the ability to yield food from the earth is a skilled labor. We also discussed the drastic differences between gardening and farm workeing in terms of the physical toll it takes on the body. Farm work requires exhaustive and repetitive movements that, over time, have irreparable effects on the body. We discussed many other dangers of farm working, such as pesticide and heat exposure.
We explained how, by joining in community garden projects such as the garden at the UCF Arboretum, people are ALREADY participating in the farm worker movement. Attendees were then told many other ways to become involved, through means such as spreading community awareness of farm worker issues and asking representatives to support Immigration Reform with a pathway to citizenship. YAYA is so proud of our Orlando community, and all of the ways that they continue to join us in our support of farm works.
Emily helm
Orlando YAYA
Photos courtesy of Emily Helm
