1. The people you meet. During my week in Immokalee, Fla., I spent almost all my time with nine of the most wonderful people I have ever met – my group members. There was barely a minute that went by that we all weren’t laughing or eating together. I have to thank all of them – Gracie, Carlos, Alexis, Hanna, Tarryn, Lauren, Laura, Meaghan and Patrick – for making this the most wonderful experience of my life and helping me to feel like I was at home away from home.
We also spent a lot of time with some very special students at RCMA, a local charter school. Hanna and I were assigned to Miss Hoover’s first grade class. While at the school, we would help the children with their homework and reading or just spend time with them. Some special students – especially Itzel, Chloe, Isaiah, Elmerl, Dylan, Jacob, Jasmin and Jaslyn – I know that I will remember in my heart forever.
We worked with some great guys at our Habitat for Humanity site. Greg, a native New Englander, oversees all the construction Habitat does in Immokalee. Armando and Miguel work on the houses every day, from foundation to completion, with any volunteers that come along. They were all so appreciative of our help and our willingness to work.
We also met some wonderful people staying at the Immokalee Friendship House with us. There are too many to name, but they were all just sweethearts who made us feel so welcome in such a different place.
2. Reflection. A big component of MOVE trips is reflection, where you get a chance to tell your group exactly what you got out of the day as well as what you learned. For our trip, everyone got a chance to lead a reflection, choosing a quote and asking the rest of the group members to share what it meant to them and how it applied to what they experienced that day or throughout the whole week. What’s remarkable about reflection is that you can tell everyone is listening to you and knows what you’re talking about, especially because they were right there alongside you.
In the folder that everyone gets before going on their trips is a journal where people can record their personal thoughts. Writing about your thoughts and experiences gives you peace in the way that it allows you to inwardly reflect and helps to empower your outer reflection with your group.
3. What you will learn. On the second day we were in Immokalee, we visited the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a local organization that works for migrant farmworker justice. We learned about the Fight for Fair Food, a project whereby the Coalition works to get big name fast food and grocery organizations to agree to certain terms in order to continue receiving tomatoes from Immokalee and other fields around the country. In short, organizations that join must agree to pay one cent more per pound of tomatoes, which goes directly to the workers, and enforce a code of conduct preventing sexual harassment and any form of abuse of workers in the field.
One of the Coalition’s other causes is the fight against modern-day slavery, of which there have been nine reported cases since 1997. We went on a walking tour around Immokalee and went past a house where one of the cases had occurred. Basically, a couple of overseers would truck several workers to and from the fields every day, leaving them locked in a U-Haul-like truck outside of the house every night. One night, the workers were able to escape through the truck’s ventilation system. Some went to the police while others went to the Coalition. The overseers are now in federal prison.
We were also shown the houses that the migrant workers live in. Because of its large migrant farmworker population that continuously relocates and returns, Immokalee is a very unstable town. Landlords take advantage of the workers’ need for housing; it actually costs more per square foot to live in Immokalee than it does to live in Manhattan.
I think that one of the most important things we learned on the trip though, despite all of these hardships, is that so many people have hope. The Coalition works for justice that is coming about, piece by piece. Jennifer, one of the people staying at the Friendship House, looks forward to leaving the shelter with her husband Donny and friend Leslie so that they can help each other get back on their feet. We all hope and wish the best for all of them.
4. The experiences you take back with you. First of all, there is nothing like the look in a child’s eyes when they are silently thanking you for taking the time to help them out. Whether it was helping them with their reading and writing or figuring out a math problem with them, the kids in Miss Hoover’s class just loved having Hanna and me around, if only to spend time with them. Despite how hard it was to say goodbye, I know that I will always remember those kids, even if we spent just one short week together, and I hope that they will always remember me.
Second, there is nothing like the way you feel after doing some good, old-fashioned manual labor. The first day I worked at Habitat, Patrick, Alexis, Lauren, Laura and I had to hammer down hurricane flaps. Hurricane flaps hold the walls of a house in place against the high winds of hurricanes by attaching the plywood to beams on the other side. The sounds of hammer pounding nail, the pain in my abs and arms as I tried to keep balance on a ladder and the sweat dripping down my face in the hot sun gave me a sense of accomplishment that only comes when you know you’re being put to work. On the other days we were at Habitat, we painted the walls of a house, tiled some floors and even shingled roofs. I got to use a nail gun! But for me, the most important part was that we weren’t just doing these simple, individualized tasks. We were building homes for people who might not have had them otherwise. When I think of home, I think of family, friends, memories, a place I can always go back to no matter what. And we were giving that to a family.
As a group, you also get to experience the area in which you are staying. One day, after finishing up our Habitat work and before heading over to RCMA, Patrick took us to a local wildlife preserve where we saw a bunch of alligators! I didn’t feel scared or threatened, which was probably not a good thing, but it was just so cool being able to see something that before had only existed on a television screen or in zoos. Throughout the week, we frequented this small restaurant called Mi Ranchito for ice cream. Toasted coconut is now my favorite flavor. The last night we were in Immokalee, we also went to an authentic Mexican restaurant, complete with refried beans and sweet tea. Oh, la comida!’
5. It changes you in so many ways. Being all the way up in Vermont, it was very easy for me to brush aside or even not think about the injustices and conditions that thousands or even millions of migrant workers face everyday across the U.S. But going down there and learning about their cause, sharing shelter with some of them, teaching some of their children and building houses for them put a face, or rather several faces, on a cause that I had thought was so far removed from me. People, just like me, were working so hard just trying to get by. They came to this country for better lives, risking everything. I now know that they deserve not only my awareness, but also my help.
Going to Immokalee also changed the way I think about my life. Before going on the trip, I had a rough outline of how I wanted things to play out. Step one: graduate from college. Step two: possibly go to graduate school. Step three: get a job at a newspaper or magazine somewhere close to home. Step four: Meet someone, get married, start a family. Step five: live out my life as a journalist, mother, wife and whatever else I have to be along the way. Pretty much all of those things are still part of the plan, but it’s not all as ironed out as I hoped. Working in Immokalee gave me a sense of purpose that I had never felt before; I was actually making a difference. I want to feel that way again. In the scariest and best ways possible, going on the trip made me uncertain about the exact course my future was going to take. So maybe in between graduation and grad school, or sometime before I settle down, I’ll take some time, I don’t know how much, and just help out. It doesn’t have to be Habitat. It doesn’t have to be in a school. Just anywhere I am needed, in the U.S. or abroad. On our extended service applications, we have to explain what the following quote means to us:
“If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”
I believe that every human being needs to help and be helped in order to have a complete existence. In changing others’ lives, I hope to be able to make the most out of mine.