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“Her name is Esperanza, or Hope, because we hope for a better world,” Lupe Gonzalo, a farmworker leader of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers said earlier this year in Palm Beach. “A world where we are all treated with dignity and respect as human beings.”
Esperanza, the 15-foot tall animated farmworker puppet, debuted this past spring in the luxurious streets of Palm Beach during the CIW’s Farmworker Freedom Festival. Embodying the hope of farmworkers everywhere for a more modern, more human agricultural industry, Esperanza quickly caught the attention of Palm Beach’s residents and national media alike. From the Miami Herald’s coverage of the Festival:
“Farmworkers brought a 15-foot puppet right outside of the board chair of Wendy’s, Nelson Peltz, mansion at Tanger Park in Palm Beach to ask him to pledge to purchase only from suppliers who follow a code of conduct designed to protect workers’ rights”…
“They tied bandanas around the puppet, named Esperanza, that have messages written in Spanish and English calling for freedom, justice and to boycott Wendy’s. Farmworkers use bandannas to protect themselves from the sun, chemicals and for more privacy.”
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From the earliest sketches of Esperanza to the hundreds of hours of clay molding, basket weaving, zip tying, engineering, papier macheing, painting, and fine-tuning, she was a work of art sprung from countless creative minds and many dedicated hands – all focused on uplifting the hopes of farmworkers from Florida to California.
But the Farmworker Freedom Festival in Palm Beach was just the beginning for the Fair Food movement’s intrepid puppet. We have plans to share Esperanza with many more towns and cities across the country in 2025, and for that we will need your support!
For many people across the country — farmworkers and allies alike — fear and uncertainty cloud our hopes for the year ahead. But the Fair Food Program, and its proven protections bringing justice and respect for human rights to tens of thousands of farmworkers, remains a beacon of light shining through the darkness.
And as we scale the Fair Food Program to change the lives of tens of thousands of more farmworkers across the country and around the globe in 2025, we remain as dedicated as ever to bringing on new participating buyers to support the program through the Campaign for Fair Food.
This immense undertaking will require resources to fund our outreach efforts, including travel, permits, and construction costs. Like her predecessor – the Immokalee Statue of Liberty, a 12-ft tall papier mache puppet carried by farmworkers on the CIW’s 234-mile march across Florida in 1999, who now resides in Washington, DC, on permanent display at the Smithsonian’s Museum of American History — Esperanza will have a powerful impact on countless communities in her lifetime, but only if we can raise the funds to make her travels and constant upkeep possible.
With your support, we can bring hope to farmworker and consumer communities across the country in the year ahead, rallying ever more allies to the cause of Fair Food, and expanding the Fair Food Program by popular demand in the process.
And this holiday season, your generous donation will go even further! Earlier this year, we received a spectacular matching gift from the NoVo Foundation. With their pledge, the NoVo Foundation will match every donation we receive this year, dollar for dollar, up to $2 million. You can double the impact of your donation and help us continue our vital work, not only across the U.S., but across the globe.
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Coalition of Immokalee Workers
110 S 2nd St
Immokalee, FL 34142
United States
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