On April 6th, the CIW launched an emergency campaign for urgently-needed health protections for Southwest Florida’s farmworker community – and one week later, the response has been nothing short of astounding.

Everyday consumers and some of the nation’s most well-respected advocacy organizations – from the Florida Public Health Association and the United Church of Christ to human rights legend Ethel Kennedy and Human Rights Watch – have added their voice to the campaign: Over 180 organizations have signed onto CIW’s open letter for a field hospital in Immokalee, and signatures on the Change.org petition have doubled to nearly 25,000 this week. The story of the farmworker community’s unique vulnerabilities – and their fight for necessary and urgently-needed protections and healthcare resources – has also echoed across the landscape of traditional media and social media, alike. 

Today, we’ve compiled highlights from the top news articles and tweets to share with you. There’s a lot of ground to cover, so let’s dive right in!

First up, CNN, one of the country’s largest news companies, reported on the dangerous living and working in conditions that millions of essential farmworkers are confronting while laboring to keep food on America’s tables during the COVID-19 pandemic. That harsh reality will not only have devastating consequences for farmworkers’ health and safety, but could also put the entire country’s supply of fresh fruits and vegetables at risk:

More than a million farmworkers aren’t hunkered down at home as the coronavirus pandemic paralyzes much of the country.