The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) awarded a $500,000 Environmental Justice Collaborative Problem-Solving (EJCPS) Cooperative Agreement grant to Farmworker Justice Fund Inc. to build capacity among farmworker-serving organizations in Washington state to improve wildfire emergency preparedness and disaster resilience in farmworker communities.
Over the 3-year project period from April 2024 to April 2027, Farmworker Justice Fund will partner with organizations like Moses Lake Community Health Center and the National Migrant and Seasonal Head Start Collaboration Office to develop a toolkit of resources and deliver SMS/text message outreach to over 10,000 farmworkers. The project aims to address gaps in emergency preparedness, such as insufficient communication of critical information in relevant languages and challenges reaching workers in remote labor camps. The collaborative project will also create an inclusive space for stakeholder engagement, leverage partner resources, and conduct an external evaluation to identify best practices for scaling the program nationally.