Steering Committee in action!

Although we have a formal set of roles and responsibilities, there's a variety of creative ways in which SC members have contributed and continue to contribute to the development of SFA and the campaign. The following are some examples — from former and current SC'ers — of "the SC in action:"

"In preparation for an action at a local Giant, which was part of the 2010 Supermarket Week of Action, we worked with a local art gallery in Washington, D.C. to host a film screening of Harvest of Shame with a discussion. The timing worked perfectly — there were students from out of town for a national conference and the art gallery was hosting an excellent photography exhibition that documented the lives of migrant workers. It was a great experience, and something we want to expand on: finding local partnerships with dynamic, relevant spaces and organizations that make for great events as well as building community relationships..."

—Marley, 2010-11 SC; Washington, DC

"In my time on the SC, I participated in a number of ways outside of the standard outline of duties. I often spent time on the phone calling other SC members and staff to talk about the upcoming actions, mobilizations, and decisions we had to make, especially if the decisions were tough ones, or people didn't seem to be in full agreement about them. This didn't happen often, but it was always helpful to feel a part of a bigger community that was mutually supportive and had my back when I wasn't felling 100% sure about what I was doing.

We also did a lot of fun actions, and threw a lot of benefit parties in my town to help meet the SC fundraising commitment. One year, I hosted the CIW on a mini-tour to Chicago, and we had presentations all day in classrooms and then a big march in the rain to invade a local McD's!

The benefits we held were generally at bars in town, on off-nights (like Sun or Thurs), and we'd have local bands play, and do a raffle of donated items or a silent auction of donated art.

I also put in lots of work each year helping organize the Encuentro and the Face to Face meetings, which meant lots of communication (on and off conference calls!) between myself, staff, and other SC members, spending time brainstorming about workshop ideas, figuring out who to invite from outside of SFA to present, and thinking through the different important pieces of the schedules throughout the events.

And, of course, there was the annual mobilizations, which were hard, but always super fun! Big hugs & good luck out there, your work is crucial & important, but most of all if should be fun!"

—Kandace, 2007-09 SC; Carbondale, IL & Austin, TX

"I compiled the Fair Food Animator's Manual, a toolkit of various popular education exercises, workshop outlines and FAQs to help us strengthen our use of education as an invaluable component of the Campaign. It drew upon my own experience doing workshops, seeing dozens of presentations by the CIW, SFA and Interfaith Action staff, and also drawing from ideas SC'ers had discussed and developed amongst each other.

I also had the opportunity to be one of several keynote speakers for the Human Trafficking Awareness Conference in Colorado. Much of the conference represented many of the pitfalls of the mainstream 'anti-human trafficking' movement such as a narrow focus on specific cases while ignoring the root causes of modern-day slavery and a hyper obsession with sex trafficking while ignoring the much more prevalent labor trafficking.

But I was able to introduce important and radical ideas to the conversation, such as the CIW's analysis that slavery is the extreme product when exploitative working conditions are the norm. To make this point for my presentation, I drew the slavery tomato plant drawing that is now posted on the SFA site and I'd like to think has become a useful resource for the network. To top it all off, I unexpectedly was given a fat honorarium for the gig, which I then gave to the SFA, killing several birds with one stone."

—Robert, 2007-08 SC; Denver, CO

"My campus has Chartwells as their foodservice provider, which was one of the companies under Compass Group that we were asking to sign an agreement with the CIW. Our local SFA group hosted a wedding of the 'unethical matrimony of a big cheap tomato and a Saluki (our school's mascot — an Egyptian dog). The officiator at the 'wedding' wore a Chartwells shirt to represent the source that brought together this matrimony. The student witnesses on hand, of course, objected to the marriage!

We did this action in three locations, including inside the student center. We were able to talk with many students about the campaign and put further pressure on Chartwells.

Later on, having this prior experience with Chartwells made it easier for me to chime in a year later when the Chartwells workers on my campus organized.

—Erica, 2008-11 SC; Carbondale, IL

"One of my personal favorite things I've done while on the SC is give fair food presentations to the K-5 childcare programs I have worked for. It was great to witness the concrete campaign contributions the children made by drawing their own postcards and telling their parents about farmworker exploitation, all while showing off their new CIW stickers when they were picked up from school.

I also found these presentations to be tremendous learning experiences for me – they helped me sharpen my popular education techniques and gave me a deeper understanding of the concepts behind the campaign...

I was also able to travel to Cleveland for a facilitation training organized by Students for a Democratic Society. This was part of the ongoing attempt to develop SC skills and experience by sending SC'ers to 'represent' SFA at different national conferences. This weekend trip had a threefold influence on me: I became more skilled and confident as a facilitator, got to meet and dialogue with other student organizers, and was humbled in the ways of being 'the SFA person' at a national event.  All in all it was an invaluable learning experience..."

—Patrick, 2008-10 SC; Boulder/Denver, CO

"I have a confession to make: I really, really like Lady Gaga. And for a while, I was kind of embarrassed about it — until I realized that I could fuse my love for Gaga with my love for the Student/Farmworker Alliance and the Campaign for Fair Food to develop a powerful action against Trader Joe’s.

I wrote a song about the Campaign to the tune of Lady Gaga’s hit single “Alejandro” and was somehow able to convince some friends and fellow activists to sing and dance along to the song while I played it on guitar — in the Trader Joe’s store itself!

On the day of our action, a few of us dressed in leotards, tights, and blonde wigs and waltzed right into the store to sing about how we wanted fair food from our beloved Trader Joe's. This was all a little silly, but it's also a really powerful organizing tool to get people involved in the campaign. After all, millions of people love Gaga, and they probably love fair food too!

-Liz, 2009-11 SC; Bay Area, CA