WFWA
Illustration by Robert Parada
Western Farm Workers Association (WFWA) is a free and voluntary, membership association of farm workers, seasonal workers and others who are low income, uniting to end our poverty conditions. We are 100% volunteer run and independent of government funding.
WFWA’s members are the backbone of the economy: we pick blueberries and strawberries, we produce Christmas wreaths and garlands, tend to the nurseries and do a variety of other vital jobs including hotel and office maintenance, construction, landscaping and childcare, yet often receive wages that don’t cover survival needs for a family.
Join WFWA and learn to organize with the lowest-paid workers in our community fighting to defeat the policies that are destroying our lives and the environment.
Illustration by Greg Manchess
Agriculture is second only to high tech in its importance to the Oregon economy. With 220 different food crops, Oregon is world-renowned for its agricultural products, including blueberries, strawberries and wine grapes. Farm workers’ labor produces this economic value and cultural value, yet we are treated as second-class citizens.
The total value of Oregon agriculture, food and fiber industries is $42 billion per year
Oregon is the #1 producer of hazelnuts (producing 100% of the hazelnuts in the US)
Oregon is the #2 producer of blueberries and pears
Oregon is the #3 producer of cherries and onions
This is WFWA
The solutions to the problems of poverty must come from those who are living them. But low-income workers cannot do it alone. WFWA works daily to unite with others who share our concerns including professionals, students, clergy, professors, business owners and others like you who are needed to expand WFWA’s material manifestation of hope through organization.
WFWA’s programs add value to our communities 365 days a year. Through every food distribution and medical session, averted utility shutoff or eviction, WFWA members and volunteers demonstrate every day that it is possible to deliver, responding to the needs of the lowest-paid workers.
Our rallying cry is ‘Don’t mourn, organize!’
WFWA is totally independent, 100% volunteer and has never taken a dime of government funding. Members learn organizing skills and are encouraged to use those skills to help the next member in need as an important part of the process of building WFWA’s self-help, 11-Point Benefit Program. The benefit program addresses immediate hardships that often prevent us from working together to forge long-term solutions to our economic problems.
Business owners contribute resources and services ranging from food and printing WFWA’s literature, to auto repairs to keep WFWA’s vehicles on the road to build organization of and by the working families that constitute a vital sector of our community. Doctors and lawyers donate their professional skills through the preventive medical benefit and legal benefit, to resolve immediate problems and ward off more serious ones. Clergy introduce us to their congregations and hundreds of others come through our doors to volunteer however they can.
WFWA members who choose to be part of the decision making process that guides the course of the association’s benefit program meet weekly. Together we forge solutions to problems; for example, how to best address the root of problems like official policies causing economic devastation in our communities.
WFWA is 100% volunteer — that means we rely on people like you to invest your time in helping to advance this vital work! Call 503-681-9399 today, and ask how you can get involved!
Volunteer Power
The most sustainable power of all time
