“It is our hope that today's farmworker movement will serve as one of many points on the horizon that inspires young people to believe in the possibility of a better world – a world where we all have space to realize our dreams."
- Gerardo Reyes Chávez, CIW

Connect with SFA!

Below are suggested action ideas and resources to help you run your own Dine with Dignity campaign. Click here for a great collection of organizing guides & tips and contact us with questions or to suggest new actions and resources.

In the wake of the CIW's agreements with major tomato grower East Coast and leading food service provider Compass, the time for stalling is over. Aramark and Sodexo must follow the lead of Compass and the rising tide of social responsibility and agree to work with the CIW to help put an end, once and for all, to Florida's harvest of shame!

Launching your campaign:

› Set up a meeting with your campus dining director
To kick off their campaigns, students are meeting with their dining services directors to discuss the conditions under which the food on their campuses is produced - and the concrete steps Aramark and Sodexo can take to end farmworker exploitation. Send us an email to get tips on setting up and carrying out your own meeting. (Scroll down for additional campaign resources.)

› Send a letter to corporate headquarters
Download the "student letter to corporations" below that is addressed to your campus's food service provider. Edit the letter with the name of your group and school and mail it to Aramark or Sodexo corporate headquarters. You can also use the letter to gather petition signatures to demonstrate student support.
.............................................................................................[Letters for download: aramark | sodexo]

Next steps:

› Follow-up.
Keep contacting your campus dining director to hold them accountable to the next steps you agreed to and/or information you asked for at the meeting.

› Consciousness + Commitment = Change
Create consciousness and awareness to build student support on your campus. Tactics include using the table tents in your dining halls, speaking in sympathetic professors' classes, holding SFA/CIW-related film screenings and campaign presentations, and submitting articles and letters to your campus or local newspapers.
Click here and here for examples of op-ed pieces that you can adapt locally; click here for an example of an open letter to Aramark that you can also use on campus.

› Organize an action on your campus
Click here for ideas of actions you can hold on your campus and in your community today! Send us an email to share pictures from your action and let us know what you're up to. For a comprehensive organizing kit, including a step-by-step guide to setting up and carrying out your meeting with your campus dining director, flyers, talking points, a free educational DVD, stickers, buttons, and more, contact us at organize@sfalliance.org.

› Connect with other students & join the conversation! SFA members organizing on the ground can be each others' greatest resource - check out our local contacts page for a list of folks "dining with dignity" and get in touch. (Want to be listed as a local contact? Let us know.) To keep up with with all the latest campaign developments, subscribe to our low-volume listserv by sending a blank email to: sfa-announce-subscribe@lists.sfalliance.org. We also have an SFA-wide discussion list, used to share strategy and action ideas around the campaign and broader movements for social justice. Contact us if you're interested in joining that list!

› Research!
Educate yourself (and try to dig up some dirt) on Aramark and Sodexo. Our friends at the Real Food Challenge and the Stir it Up Campaign have tons of great info online; stay tuned for SFA's own food service research page where we'll be posting actual foodservice-university contracts. If you have your hands on your campus's contract or any other info you think would be valuable to the campaign, let us know!

November 2009: SFA / Slow Food on Campus / Real Food Challenge / 350.org Month of Action:
NEW!
"Dine with Dignity"
half-page outreach flyer
aramark | sodexo

SFA letter to corporations
aramark | sodexo
resources are in pdf format. you'll need adobe reader to view & print them.

These are great primers on SFA, the CIW & farmworker conditions. Click here for more campaign resources.

NEW!
SFA: Who We Are
english | español

NEW!
CIW: Who We Are
english | español

Check out the work some of our partner organizations are doing around food, labor and social justice issues. Find out if any of their members are in your area and explore ways to support each other's campaigns:

real food challenge | united students against sweatshops (usas) | student labor action project (slap)
movimiento estudiantil chicano/a de aztlán (mecha) |
slow food on campus | stir it up campaign | unite here | seiu | clean up sodexo | united students for fair trade (usft) | fair food across borders | student action with farmworkers

 

PO Box 603, Immokalee, FL 34143 :: (239) 657-8311 :: organize (at) sfalliance.org