02 Apr 2013

Why We Give to Puente: Carol Young-Holt and David Sandage

Carol Young-Holt and David Sandage in Ireland

If Rev. Wendy Taylor is the spiritual mother who gave birth to Puente, Carol Young-Holt and David Sandage are its fairy godparents.

The couple moved to La Honda in 1989 without suspecting that they would eventually help form the nucleus of social services on the South Coast. At least until they started volunteering with Puente – and saw how their Mexican neighbors lived.

“I was absolutely appalled by the lack of basic services that I took for granted, coming from Palo Alto – the lack of health care and transportation, among other things,” says Young-Holt.

In 1997, Young-Holt, with her husband’s support, was among a small group of locals who met to figure out how they could solve the most intractable problems on the South Coast. Their goal was to leverage county services and private funds to address the needs of Pescadero’s least fortunate residents. Eventually, the group became known as the South Coast Collaborative.

The newly funded services included mental health for the local schools; safety net services; English Language Learning classes; expanded and new preschool services at Pescadero Elementary and La Honda Elementary Schools; a new south coast transportation system, SamCoast;  and bringing the County’s mobile health van to La Honda. All of these services were provided under the auspices of a spinoff called North Street Community Resource Center, which formally merged with Puente on April 1, 2007.

Today, Sandage and Young-Holt are monthly sustaining Puente donors. Young-Holt is Vice Chair of the Puente Board of Directors. Sandage serves weekly meals at La Sala, where he enjoys chatting in Spanish with the farm workers who come for a hot meal – a role he has played since La Sala began.

“They’re some of the most honorable people I know,” Sandage says. “They work really hard and they’re always careful to consider your feelings.”

Both are longtime parishioners of Pescadero Community Church, the home base of La Sala and the locus of the original Puente Ministry, founded in 1998 by Rev. Wendy Taylor.

Of all the work they’ve done on behalf of South Coast neighbors – the meals they’ve served, the money they’ve raised, the classes they’ve taught – Carol Young-Holt and David Sandage say the most rewarding by far experience has been watching Puente transform people’s lives.

For example, Sandage really values his role as a volunteer mentor in Puente’s citizenship education program, which involves basic English instruction as well as helping people pass their U.S. citizenship test.

“That’s really enjoyable because it’s a one-on-one relationship. You really make a friend.”

Sandage credits Puente’s Zumba dance classes with uniting locals from white and Latino backgrounds in the name of fun and fitness.

“When we first got here that never could have happened, because everybody was afraid to come out of their homes,” he says.

Young-Holt praises Puente’s youth program, which was founded back in 2007, for “giving the kids some real purpose. I’m watching more and more kids go off to college who might not have gone off to college before.”

Because of Young-Holt’s vision, South Coast neighbors contribute funds each year to Puente’s Youth Bridges Awards – scholarships that are provided to each and every youth that has worked at Puente high school years.

As the South Coast continues to change – culturally, economically and demographically – Puente’s ability to adapt and respond to the needs of residents owes much to the powerful support of its original fairy godparents.

31 Mar 2013

Profile of a South Coast Farmworker Family

Nursery

Cesar Chavez’s Birthday and Day 8- Farmworker Awareness Week
(Names have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals.)

Cesar Chavez said, “The fight is never about grapes or lettuce. It is always about people.”

Maria and Juan are two people who work for a local nursery. “We do it all: weeding, picking, making flower bouquets,” she said. They have worked for the same farm for twenty years now. She explained, “If you work here you pay less rent. Other people in town pay a lot more for houses that are in really bad condition.” Monthly rent for a trailer in Pescadero, for example, can run up to $1,000.

Back in Mexico, 3 months after Maria and Juan got married, Juan left their home in the state of Jalisco to come and work in California. A few years later, Maria joined him. Juan eventually received his work permit through the amnesty, but he didn’t want to get legal documents for her, a reality faced by many undocumented women with controlling husbands.  “I was upset about it and I often told him, ‘I need to see my family!’” Four times, though, Juan chose to pay a coyote to take his wife across the border illegally rather than applying for a green card for her. One year, it took her a month to cross. Only then did he agree to seek the green card.

Their entire household depends on agriculture. Maria herself remembers not having food, her mother abandoning her when she was young. Today, when her children ask for something, she finds a way to get it for them. “I know I need to be a good mother and choose when to give and when not, but it is so sad when you don’t have anything,” she spoke, through tears. She has been working since she was 8 years old.

Still Juan and Maria have worked hard to guide their daughter into a four-year university. “To be honest,” Maria said, “everything she has in college right now, she has earned all by herself.” Her daughter has a full ride because of her excellent grades and Maria is proud as well as deeply thankful she doesn’t have to find the money. “We couldn’t,” she believed. Yet her value of education is absolute. When asked about what she would like other people to know about being a farmworker, she said, “I would like to tell youth to study because the work in the field is very hard.”

Hard as it may be, in general, Maria enjoys her work– though she fears the winter, as she is required to work outside regardless of the weather, like so many others. She is grateful to have a job, but what she hardly ever feels is appreciated. “No one ever says ‘thank you,’ not even ‘good morning.’ I feel humiliated sometimes because people don’t see the work we do. I would like respect for our work because we do the work Americans won’t do.”

Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7

31 Mar 2013

Portrait of a New South Coast Farmworker

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Day 7- National Farmworker Awareness Week

ShaeLynn grew up in California and in July of 2010 moved to Pescadero where she and her husband Kevin started their ranch, Early Bird Ranch. Neither had come from a farming family and, in fact, the couple planned on becoming professors. But as they were applying for PhD programs, they decided that path was not for them.

“We chose to settle in Pescadero because… we could see the innovation in agriculture that was taking place here—there are a surprising number of small organic and sustainable farms, and we wanted to be a part of that community,” says ShaeLynn. “When we got here, we made an effort to get involved in the community by joining the Pescadero Community Church, and participating in events at Puente.”

ShaeLynn and Kevin know they represent the new face of farming. They raise sustainable poultry, pork, rabbit, and eggs – a far cry from the factory farms that produce most of the nation’s meat supply. They join a growing number of young and educated Anglos, mostly non-immigrants, that are starting and working on farms (though ShaeLynn herself is a member of the Hoopa Valley Tribe in northern California). They are driven to action because they care about their food and where it comes from– a group that doesn’t deal with the struggles of immigration status, inability to see their family, or broken laws, but who work hard to put healthy food on our tables.

A normal day for ShaeLynn begins at sunrise and ends well into the evening. She says, “A lot of people see owning your own farm as really idyllic and peaceful. And it is, some of the time! But it also comes with a lot of stress of responsibility, stress on your body, stress of balancing your time between the business and your family. A lot of work goes into getting my chicken to your table, and while I feel blessed to have the job I have, it involves a lot of sacrifices in potential earnings, physical pain, and job security.”

She enjoys most aspects of her job– working outside and with her family, as well as contributing to providing better food options to customers. “I think my job is very important—more and more people value food raised responsibly in a way that values the land, the animal, the farmer, and the community, and I’m happy to provide it for them.”

ShaeLynn did not elect to remain anonymous, a fact in and of itself represents a stark contrast from the reality of the immigrant farmworker experience. Despite similar callouses and sore backs, she and her husband are their own bosses. They own their own fate, have a community who embraces and supports them, and have goals that do not feel unreachable.

Looking into the future, ShaeLynn muses, “I dream of raising my son and other children on the farm where they have a clear connection to their food and nature, so that they value the food they put in their bodies and the work that goes into producing it.”

Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6