Newspapers / Philanthropy Journal of North … / Sept. 1, 1993, edition 1 / Page 13
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September 1993 Philanthropy Journal of North Carolina 13 Migrant Continued from page 12 to help build community, says Bo Arbogast of East Coast Migrant Health Project, a federally funded program that places its medicai advisers and other heipers in migrant conununities along the East Coast. Arbogast assisted Valdez in her presentation. The two also hope the women will learn enou^ about health issues so they can share the information with others in their community. Jackson Alters, also a senior at Duke, was spending his second sum mer as an SAF intern. This summer he worked on a recreation program designed to offset the problem of drug and alcohol abuse - especially prevalent among sin^e males - in the migrant camps. The program offers the migrants volleyball, soccer, basketball, movies, food and socializing. Camp life is aimost devoid of stimulating activity, both mental and physical. Alters says. “That’s why substance abuse is such an option. What the heil else do you have to do?” In addition to the recreation pro gram, AUers and the five other SAF volunteers at the Tri-County health clinic, visit farms scattered throu^- out Johnston, Sampson and Harnett counties, taking Wood pressure and examining the workers for other health problems. High blood pressure is a common problem and the rate of tuberculosis among the migrant population is dis- proportionateiy high. “OK, Larry, you’re high,” Alters tells a worker one night after taking Ms Wood pressure. The worker replies, “I guess it comes from pork. I eats a iot of pork. And I drink a lot of beer.” ’While they wait for a physician’s assistant to finish examining another worker, AUers teUs Larry he can get free clothing from the clinic and can have his teeth examined for free. Puiling a tooth wiU cost him $7. Luis E. Reyes, a physician’s assistant with the East Coast Migrant Health Project who works tor Tri-County Community Health Center, joins the men, and quickly begins asking Larry about his health. Reyes learns through the conver sation that Larry was horn with a hoie in his heart, has problems uri nating and peri- odically has Wgh blood pres sure. Reyes fills out for Larry an appointment slip for a physi cal at the clinic, then moves on to the next man, who has a prob lem with his feet. Meanwhile, AUers, the stu dent volunteer, teUs Larry about the clinic’s van that makes rounds to the camps. Larry promises he’ll be in the Mow ing week for a I feel an obligaion to give some thing back. I've been eat ing everything they've been picking for me for my entire life. JACKSON ALLERS Volunteer checkup. This scenario is re-played two nights a week on a handful of the farms that are home, if oWy for the season, to about 30,000 migrant laborers in the three coimties. Carolyn Corrie, director of SAF, says 495,000 migrant farm workers and their families pass through North Carolina each year. The state ranks fifth nationwide in the number of migrant farm workers behind California, Florida, Texas and Washington. “There are too many camps for us to count,” AUers says. But despite their numbers, AUers says, most people don’t give much thought to the migrant population, even though they’re responsible for picking the food that goes on our tables. Houston is a “Mecca” for migrants, AUers says of his home town in Texas. “But I didn’t even know what a migrant farm worker was untU I came to Duke. “The farm worker population to me seemed to he an invisible popula tion,” he says. Now it’s a population he’U never forget. Valdez says it’s hard to gauge the impact of programs to educate migrant workers. WUl the women in the Smithfield trader park, for exam ple, teach what they’ve learned to others? It’s not hard to conclude, howev er, how much the experience has changed the lives of the interns. Many say their “migrant summer” changed them forever. “I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s not that much that separates me from a migrant farm worker,” A bright idea Duke grad hatched volunteer group As a Duke University undergrad uate, Carolyn Corrie saw a need for student volunteers to work with migrant farmworkers. So she formed a nonprofit, Student Action with Farmworkers, and obtained some foundation grants. Now, SAF is ready to expand to include volunteers from 10 college campuses. By Katherine Noble I— or a growing group of work- ^ ers in North Carolina, health I insurance, benefits and job security are luxuries they wouldn’t even dream of. Instead, they worry about heat exhaustion, rides to the health clinic and exposure to dangerous pesti cides. A Durham-based, college volun teer program. Student Action with Farmworkers, is working to meet the health, educational and legal needs of North Carolina’s migrant farm workers through 10-week summer internships. A recent injection of federal grant money will enable SAF to place more students in the fields next summer. Carolyn Corrie, SAF director, says she wiil use the two-year, $133,250 matching grant from the Commission on National and Com munity Service, to expand the pro gram this fall to nine college campus es in North Carolina and one in South Carolina. The funds must be matched one to one from non-federal sources that Corrie still is pursuing. Corrie says she hopes that at least 50 students - three to four at each university and ten formally migrant college students — will par ticipate in the program in 1994. 'This year’s interns were from a variety of schoois, inciuding Duke, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and N.C. Central University. 'The grant will also fund a student coordinator on each campus to heip cover recruiting and fund raising costs and lay the groundwork for preparatory classes for the volunteers. 'The federal fimds will also pay for an assis tant in the Durham office to heip Corrie organize the expan sion. A portion of the fnnds also will fund students who on their own couldn’t afford to spend a summer volunteering. “People need to he able to live,” Corrie says. “I’d like to make the internship a more competitive option for people, especially students on financial aid.” Ideally, she says, each intern, regardless of financial need, would receive a $1,000 stipend. The stu dents will raise half that amount themselves. Students on financial aid would receive an additional $1,000 post-service educational stipend to help pay for school. Corrie, 24, typifies how an intern ship can change a student’s life. After her freshman year at Duke, Corrie spent the summer working in New York City at the National Coalition for the Homeless. “That summer in particular changed the way I looked at life and what I was doing,” says the New York City native. A History and Latin American studies major, Corrie spent her junior year studying in Costa Rica. “I remember a friend telling me, ‘You don’t need to leave the United States to use your Spanish, Carolyn.’” Corrie took the advice. In 1990, she was part of the first group of students in Duke’s Center for Documentary Studies program to spend the summer working with migrant farm workers. AUers says. “I just lucked out by birth.” “I feel an obligation to give some thing hack to this culture,” he says. “I’ve been eating everything they’ve been picking for me for my entire life.” AUers says he had no choice but to come back for a second year as an intern. “It sucked me in. It was lUre a vacuum.” AUers says his future career, whether in documentary photogra phy, social work or writing, will focus on the South and what he says is the paradox of different cultures all try ing to adapt to what he characterizes as a white, ruling-class system. Valdez says her future also was shaped by her summer as an SAF volunteer. She already knew she wanted to he a doctor. Now she knows she won’t be satisfied in private practice. “AU I’ve seen this summer is the huge need of low socio-eeonomic classes. They need medical atten tion,” she says. “I don’t think I’d be content just forgetting about it.” Speaking in Spanish - a language that comes easily for the dau^ter of Cuban Immigrants - Valdez explains to her students in the trailer park how the HIV virus is transmitted, how viruses attack the body’s defens es, and what bacteria is. After the lesson, the women gath er around Valdez, hugging and kiss ing her good-bye. “It was tough getting them eager,” Valdez says later. “But when I see this sort of response or interac tion I feel much closer to them.” “This is a frustrating job and you feel for these people,” she says. “I don’t know what tod of impact I’ve made, but when I get into a position of power - when I can have more of an impact than as a junior biology major - I’ve learned a way to address a social ill. “Hopefully,” she says, “I won’t forget about it.” As if to reassure herself she adds, “It’s been part of my life for 10 weeks. It’s going to stick with me.” summer changed the way I look at life. CAROLYN CORRIE SAFDirector Soon after graduating in 1991, she set out to expand the migrant internship program. There’s a huge student service movement, Corrie says, but very few programs address the needs of migrant farm workers. In August 1992, she incorporated SAF as a nonprofit organization, albeit a poor one. “We had no money at all,” Corrie says. In November of 1992, SAF received a $10,000 challenge grant from the The Kathleen Price and Joseph M. Bryan Family Foundation in Greensboro. In March, a $15,000 grant from The Cannon Foundation in Concord came in, allowing SAF to match the Bryan grant. Since then, money has come from individual donors and foundations, including the Mary Duke Biddle Foundation in Durham and The Adele M. Thomas Trust in Chapel Hill. Assuming SAF’s fundraising efforts are suceesful, the organiza tion’s 1993-94 operating budget wiil be $235,000. Corrie says she hopes eventually to pass the reins of leadership to another former intern, maintaining the “by students, for students” basis of the organization. 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Philanthropy Journal of North Carolina (Raleigh, N.C.)
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Sept. 1, 1993, edition 1
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