Volunteers at the Mission Food Hub are celebrating César Chávez’s birthday today with the start of a food drive for Central Valley farmworkers, and a set of performances.
The event, at 701 Alabama St., will include a prayer by Eva Royal starting at noon, and will take food donations until 6 p.m. During the afternoon, there will be a a musical performance by Francisco Herrera and Francisco Duran, and words by Richard Ibarra, according to Roberto Hernandez, one of the Mission Food Hub founders.
Hernandez said bringing food resources to farmworkers was a fitting way to honor the legacy of César Chávez.
“Farmworkers are the hardest working people on Mother Earth, and have suffered loss of life and health due to the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as economic hardships,” Hernandez said.
Chávez, a Mexican American labor and civil rights activist, co-founded the National Farm Workers Association, and helped organize and execute labor strikes or produce boycotts to demand better working conditions for agricultural workers, perhaps most famously were several efforts against Central Valley grape companies in the late 1960s. Chávez died in 1993.
After today, volunteers will continue to take food donations during normal operating hours, which are Mondays from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. and Wednesdays and Fridays starting at 10 a.m.
After the Farmworkers Food Drive ends on April 10, drivers from the San Francisco Lowrider council, and other community members, will deliver the collected food to the Central Valley.
