California AgrAbility staff met Josefina at the OneHealth Festival in Knights Landing. This is a hoes-down style festival held in October and hosted by the Knights Landing Environmental Health Project and the Knights Landing One Health Clinic, a student run clinic in this community of farmworkers. Josefina is known in her community for her role as a promotora, community leader, who was crucial in projects like advocating to reopen the local clinic and investigating high rates of cancer in local farmworkers.
Josefina works every year planting, pruning, hoeing and harvesting local crops such as almonds and tomatoes. Early in the pandemic, Josefina and her fellow farmworkers found it challenging to find facemasks. Josefina’s daughter, a California AgrAbility program participant, connected staff to her mother. Josefina worked with AgrAbility to distribute facemasks for her, her crew and farmworkers with chronic conditions. There was much fear in these workers because many of them live with diabetes and cardiovascular disease, conditions signaled as having higher risk of severe presentation of COVID-19 illness. These face mask donations came to AgrAbility from Chere Schiele, an avid sewer who sowed and donated hundreds of masks for farmworkers and farmers.