Steering Committee meets in Immokalee, FL, Jan 25-28, 2008

Aramie (27, Louisville, KY) is a student at University of Louisville, majoring in Anthropology, minoring in Spanish and Social Change. She loves horses, mountain dancing, mandolin playing, and collaborative justice. After hearing a farmworker speak in 2004 she joined a CIW march in Louisville before jumping on the worker bus and traveling to Immokalee for the first time. She interned for SFA in Fall 2005, joining the Real Rights Tour before returning home to organize locally. Initially impressed by the organizational philosophy of the CIW and SFA, she is constantly inspired by how the struggle grows and changes yet always remains the same. Aramie has also organized in Appalachia for clean streams and an end to mountaintop removal and most recently provided on-land support for a resistor grandmother in the Diné (Navajo) Nation. She is of mixed European and Native American descent. Contact Aramie: aramie (at) sfalliance.org

Stephanie Bates (24, Minneapolis, MN) is currently a worker’s rights organizer for the Midwest Coalition for Human Rights, a grassroots human rights organization working to promote and protect human rights in the Midwest region. Stephanie works to draw attention to the deplorable working conditions in meatpacking plants and organizes with meatpacking workers in Minnesota. She became involved with SFA about a year ago and helped to organize a group of over 50 people to travel to Chicago. She continues to be actively involved in the Twin Cities CIW Solidarity Committee as well as the Twin Cities Community Raid Response Team, a community group working to say no to the raids that are tearing our families and communities apart. Contact Stephanie: stephanie (at) sfalliance.org

Alyssa Cundari (21, Miami, FL) is originally from Chicago but is currently a student at the University of Miami and in her third year studying history and political science. She is dedicated to social and economic justice, community development and solidarity, building grassroots power and campaigns, and fighting patriarchy, white supremacy, racism, sexism, homphobia, capitalism and all forms of oppression. At UM she is chair
of Students Towards a New Democracy (STAND), an organization that led the fight in a successful campaign to help unionize the service workers on her campus, and chair of the Iraq Committee of the Young Democrats. She is also involved with Greenpeace, United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS), Student Government Advancement Team, Freshman Leadership Academy, and National Organization
for Women (NOW). She also serves on the Coordinating Committee for Young Democratic Socialists, is a Campus Progress Student Representative and a Young People For Fellow. She has also worked with community organizations such as Domestic Workers United and the Miami Workers Center, and upon graduation hopes to become a full time community organizer. She is really excited to be more deeply invovled with SFA and CIW, especially because she works in the same town as the belly of the current beast, Burger King! Contact Alyssa: alyssa (at) sfalliance.org

Arabella Parlati Daniels (21, Hattiesburg, MS) is student at the University of Southern Mississippi where she studies Spanish and human rights. She can often be found neglecting her school work and instead consuming her time with her local campus hybrid chapter of United Students Against Sweatshops/Student
Farmworker Alliance, as well as assisting with social services and doing outreach with the local immigrant community in The Burg. Ms. Daniels was probably most influenced by the affects of the Katrina Disaster in her local communities and her single momma that didn't play any games and raised her up to always fight for that which is just. She is thrilled to be involved in such an amazing and important group comprised of some of the most down-right incredible people.. Contact Arabella: arabella (at) sfalliance.org

Patrick Kelsall (21, Boulder, CO) was born and raised in Lafayette, Colorado. When his trouble-making days in high school gratefully ended, Patrick moved down the road to attend the University of Colorado at Boulder. There, professors, other students, and community organizers exploded his mind with inspiration and showed him how to channel motivation in a positive, disciplined way. Since then he has been committed to local organizing on many different, yet related, issues and has been privileged to spend brief amounts of time in New Orleans and Mexico. Right now Patrick is finishing up college and plans to continue organizing in his community. Contact Patrick: patrick (at) sfalliance.org

Kate Kelly (16, Austin, TX) is a junior at LBJ High School in Austin, Texas. As a freshman she worked with Youth Activists of Austin (YAA), a local coalition focused on limiting military recruiters' access to students in schools. After a year-long campaign, YAA succeeded in developing a set of guidelines for recruiters with the local school district, making AISD the first district in the state to adopt such a policy. During her sophomore year, Kate traveled with her local chapter of SFA to the April, 2007 mobilization in Chicago to celebrate the victory over McDonald's. Over the course of that weekend, Kate fell in love with the CIW/SFA's movement and the people and has been focusing on laborer's rights in Immokalee, as well as in Texas, ever since.

Graciela Lopez (19, Washington, DC) is a Chicana student activist who was born and raised in the 'Burque (Albuquerque) New Mexico. She is currently studying peace and conflict resolution and women’s and Gender Studies at American University in DC. While in New Mexico she got involved with women’s rights issues, immigrants rights issues as well as United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS). She has been passionate about human rights since she was in Mexico when she was young and saw the vast inequalities between her and her young Mexican friends who had dirt floors. In between high school and college, she lead a delegation of USAS students around Mexico and learned about the labor rights issues, through meeting with workers, management and touring factories. She is currently the Mid-Atlantic Regional Organizer with USAS. Contact Graciela: graciela (at) sfalliance.org

Robert McGoey (25, Denver, CO) was born and raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He gained a political consciousness through his involvement with Young Religious Unitarian Universalists and became active in radical politics and local community organizing while attending the University of New Mexico. He first became involved with the SFA and CIW during the Taco Bell Boycott and, in the spring of 2006, went to Immokalee to intern with Interfaith Action. Most recently, he was part of the organizing team for the major mobilizations outside McDonald´s headquarters which led to the successful resolution of the McDonald´s campaign. He looks forward to bringing the Campaign for Fair Food to the doorstep of a certain "fast-casual" burrito chain based in his new home of Denver, CO. Contact Robert: robert (at) sfalliance.org

Katy Murphy-Andrus (22, Lawrence, KS) has been an activist most of her life. She started out organizing and volunteering with various groups in high school. She was born and raised in Kansas and is now in her fourth year at the University of Kansas, majoring in Latin American Studies. She has been involved with several groups at the university and in the community including Apoyo Trabajador, the Solidarity Radical Library Collective, Women Take Back the Night and Kansas Mutual Aid. She began working with the SFA in the fall of 2005 when she helped to form a solidarity group, Lawrence Fair Food, in Lawrence, Kansas. Contact Katy: katy (at) sfalliance.org

Gerardo Reyes-Chávez (30, Immokalee, FL) has worked in the fields since age 11, first as a peasant farmer in Zacatecas, Mexico and then in the fields of Florida picking oranges, tomatoes, and watermelons. He joined the Coalition of Immokalee Workers shortly after his arrival in the United States in 2000. Since then Gerardo has been an active member of the CIW, leading national actions including Root Cause, the grassroots and people of color response to the FTAA ministerial in Miami in 2003. Gerardo also helps to run Radio Conciencia, the new low-power community radio station through which the CIW is creating a space to share the diversity of cultures, languages, and experiences that make up Immokalee. Contact Gerardo: gerardo (at) ciw-online.org

Rudi Rubio-Heumann (20, Mount Pleasant, MI) is currently living her American Ethnic Studies major as a queer woman of color on a predominantly white university campus. This daughter of working-class Germans and Mexican immigrants first got involved with the CIW and SFA in the spring of 2007 when she helped organize a student-led trip to Chicago, IL for the McDonald's Truth Tour and was seduced by the elegant simplicity of the beautiful, dignified campaign. This experience along with the acquaintance of some really down folks kicked-off a crash course in community organizing and poder popular which led to her work with campus and community groups like Collective Action for Cultural Unity (CACU) and the Central Michigan University Social Justice Coalition. Rudi can be found in the middle of a state surrounded by lakes redefining the sound of the banjo, building connections with latino youth and mixed folks of color, and picking up the pieces of a cultura abandoned when her family moved from the fields to the suburbs. Contact Rudi: rudi (at) sfalliance.org

Cruz Salucio Perez (23, Immokalee, FL) is one of the newest and youngest CIW staff members. He is a native of Guatemala where he worked in the fields with his family, harvesting coffee, corn, and beans. He came to Immokalee in January 2005 to work as a farmworker and became involved with the CIW´s low-power community radio station, Radio Conciencia, and shortly after became an active member of the CIW, participating in meetings, actions, and other events. In Spring 2006, he was part of the organizing team in Chicago that helped to prepare for the 2006 McDonald´s Truth Tour, and has been organizing in Immokalee around the Burger King campaign since. Cruz also speaks popti´, a Mayan indigenous language. Contact Cruz: cruz (at) ciw-online.org

John-Michael Torres (24, Mission, TX) is a long time resident of the Rio Grande Valley and recent graduate of the University of Texas at Austin. His initial involvement with the CIW and SFA came through work with the Campus Greens and MEChA on the Boot the Bell Campaign at UT. Before graduating and moving back home he was pleasantly surprised to find folks already working on CIW solidarity efforts in the Valley and joined them. As a current member of the World Peace Alliance, he works on various issues facing the Valley’s livelihood including the border wall, domestic violence, and locally-based agriculture. John-Michael enjoys tocando jarana, learning about community organizing, and being spiteful of activists who come to the valley, find it too tough for them to organize in, and then leave, taking all of their experience with them. When he is not working on justice issues you can find him in the magazine department at Barnes and Noble. Contact John-Michael: johnmichael (at) sfalliance.org

Kandace Vallejo (24, Carbondale, IL) is currently studying high school history education at Southern Illinois
University. She boycotts capitalizing letters in emails, enjoys strong coffee with lots of sugar, likes challenging/being challenged to deepen understandings through circular learning, and thinks its kind of strange to write about herself in the third person (but gets a kick out of it). Sometimes going by her alter ego, ace, this rad xicana thrives on working to create systemic change and can often be found dancing to late 90s hip-hop while cooking. Ace got involved with the Coalition and the SFA most directly through the Student Environmental Action Coalition (SEAC), and since then has been working with both SEAC and SFA to build networks of students and youth that critically analyze privilege, oppression, neoliberalism, and capitalism. Contact Kandace: kandace (at) sfalliance.org

Candelario Vasquez (24, Immokalee, FL) is a queer Chicano activist and aspiring Son Jarochero. He grew up in a migrant farmworking family whose struggles developed a great passion for social justice. He is dedicated to his community and continually promotes culture as a form of resistance. Cancer from pesticide exposure ended his father's life at a young age; personal and community histories led him to actively participate with the CIW from Immokalee's first direct action to the many recent Truth Tours. Participation in the Coalition of Immokalee Workers has led to an internship with the SFA/CIW and a chance to organize with them on many occasions at the community and university level. Cande recently graduated Florida State University and currently lives in Immokalee, where he plans to teach. Contact Cande: candelario (at) sfalliance.org