Marco Guevara, proud father of 3 and husband, succumbs to heat on Immokalee area farm, lies fighting for his life in Naples hospital

Mr. Guevara’s employer, JAM Farmers, is not part of Fair Food Program and its life-saving heat protections, called “the strongest set of workplace heat protections in the United States” by the Washington Post

As temperatures continue to rise and set new records every year, the case for farms and buyers to join the Fair Food Program only grows more urgent

You can help: GoFundMe effort launched by Immokalee area pastor, Pastor Miguel Estrada, to help Mr. Guevara’s family in this most difficult time. Please consider donating to their fund.

Late last week, news reached the Immokalee community of a worker felled by the intense heat and humidity of Florida’s summer season and taken to a hospital in nearby Naples, where he lay in a coma on life support. Today, as of this writing, Marco Antonio Hernandez Guevara remains in critical condition fighting for his life.  His wife, Reyna Jimenez, arrived this morning from Mexico on a humanitarian visa to be by her husband’s side in these unimaginably difficult days.  

The story of how Mr. Guevara came to be lying on the edge of death in a Naples hospital bed is a terrible tragedy. In today’s world — where the demonization and mass deportation of millions of hard-working immigrants dominates the headlines — Mr. Guevara did everything the “right” way: he had completed one H-2A “guestworker” contract in May, returned to Mexico to spend a few precious moments with his family, and returned to Florida in August on a second H-2A visa. He was doing skilled, physically demanding work — harvesting fields under Florida’s crushing heat — putting food on our tables as an essential worker, yet paid at near poverty-level wages that, for generations, only immigrants from countries far poorer than ours have been willing to endure. Every day he stepped into our fields he made a vital contribution to the greater good, to our collective economic well-being.

And yet, somehow, despite his invaluable contribution, we, the collective we who invited him to work in our fields and benefitted from his hard labor, failed to protect Mr. Guevara — and by extension his family of three beautiful daughters who may lose their father, and his wife who may lose her husband — from the clear and present danger of rising temperatures that, at any given moment, can threaten workers’ very lives.

Marco Antonio Hernandez Guevara, along with the rest of his family, celebrating his youngest daughter's third birthday

Worse yet, we failed to protect him from that deadly heat when proven, effective protections exist.

The farm where Mr. Guevara worked was not part of the Fair Food Program, and so not a participant in the FFP’s industry-leading heat protection protocols. There is, of course, no way to be certain when it comes to individual cases, but it stands to reason that had the FFP’s protections been in place — including regular breaks, the provision of shade and the right to use it whenever one feels the need, sufficient water and the option of water with electrolytes, and training for supervisors and workers alike in emergency protocols when someone is overcome by the heat — the risk to Mr. Guevara’s life could have been avoided. The water, electrolytes, shade, and breaks may have provided sufficient support against the heat, and the emergency protocols may have provided the means for more effective intervention if not. What is certain is that the FFP’s heat standards — called “the strongest set of workplace protections in the United States” by the Washington Post just last year — would not have hurt his chances at survival, and when the stakes are literally life or death, what possible argument could there be against joining the gold standard to ensure the greatest protections for workers’ lives?

Pastor Miguel Estrada, a longtime farm labor justice leader in the Immokalee community, has launched a GoFundMe page to help raise funds to support Mr. Guevara’s family in their time of need. We are including the full text of the GoFundMe page here below.

You can also visit the page and help support Mr. Guevara’s family by clicking here:

With heavy hearts, we share the story of Marco Antonio Hernández Guevara, just 35 years old, who is now on life support after suffering a devastating heat stroke while working the fields under the brutal Florida sun.

Marco did everything he could to be the best father and husband he could be. He came to the U.S. this summer on an H-2A visa, willing to sacrifice time away from his family and take on the hard, dangerous work of harvesting our crops, if it meant he could provide a better future for his wife and children back home. Before leaving, he posed for one last family photo with his wife and their youngest daughter, only 4 years old—never imagining it might be their final moment together.

But on August 14, while harvesting for JAM Farmers in Clewiston, Marco collapsed from extreme heat. He was rushed to the hospital, but he has not responded to care. His wife has now arrived in the U.S. to be by his side and make the heartbreaking decisions about his care.

Now, Marco’s young family is left reeling. Alongside unimaginable grief, they face overwhelming financial burdens: travel costs, hospital expenses, and the sudden loss of the sole income that sustained them.

We are asking for your help. Every donation will go directly to Marco’s family to ease this crushing burden and bring them some measure of stability in their darkest hour.

Please give what you can, share this page widely, and hold Marco and his loved ones in your thoughts. Even the smallest gift can make a tremendous difference.

Just last year, Gerardo Reyes Chavez, a farmworker and senior staff member of the CIW, warned grocery giant, Kroger, of the potentially deadly consequences of letting the workers in its supply chain toil without necessary protections from the heat. Addressing Kroger board members during a shareholder resolution action, Gerardo cautioned, “We must establish the gravity, indeed, the dire urgency of this resolution. The stakes of a just transition for Kroger are nothing less than life or death for the farmworkers who put food on all our tables.  Even just taking a break to drink water has been met with harassment and violence from a supervisor. I know this because it is the reality I myself have lived as a farmworker.” Indeed, according to federal statistics, farmworkers are 35 more times likely to die from heat-related stress than people working in any other field.

Remarkably, even in the midst of this tragedy, Mr. Guevara’s wife is thinking of others. “I would do anything to ensure that no one else ever has to go through what Marco and our family are going through today,” Ms. Jimenez told supporters in Immokalee. Let us honor her strength by rallying as a Fair Food Nation to support her family now, and by continuing the fight to extend the Fair Food Program’s life-saving protections to all workers in the future.

The solution is not a mystery. Science has long made it clear: to survive rising temperatures, farmworkers need shade, rest, and water. These must be guaranteed as basic, mandatory rights. And for that to happen, more buyers and more farms must join the Fair Food Program — without further delay. 

Coalition of Immokalee Workers
110 S 2nd St
Immokalee, FL 34142
United States

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