Migrant farmworkers near the Mexican border could have a better Christmas with the help of an LSU organization. Student volunteers with Alternative Service Break, a student service organization devoted to helping communities outside Louisiana, will give up part of their winter break to go on one of two five-day trips in December and January to San Juan, Texas, about 10 miles north of the border. There they will serve food to migrant farm workers, help them build homes and educate them about their legal rights as workers. The nine volunteers going in December and the seven going in January agreed to pay $80 each to help cover expenses. Melissa Ferniz, ASB trip leader, said this week’s fundraising is to reimburse members for their out-of-pocket payments. “People shouldn’t have to give money to help,” Ferniz said. The group is fundraising all week in Free Speech Plaza with Jail Bail 2005, where students can pay to put their friends in “jail” – a spraypainted cardboard cell with silver stripes. “You want me to smile while I’m in jail?” said Billy Overton, music composition sophomore, laughing as ASB chair Megan Scelfo took his picture inside the bounded space. Overton put an orange shirt over his to resemble prison uniforms. “The offer was just too tempting,” said his wife Vertina, who gladly paid her dollar to put her husband in the slammer. But it was noisy Tuesday in Free Speech Plaza. ASB members had to compete for students’ attention with the weekly preachers telling the campus community to repent. Megan and other ASB members had to yell loudly “Put your friends in jail!” to get their share of the attention. “People offered us $50 to put one of [the preachers] in jail,” Scelfo said. The 28-member volunteer group, which made $50 on Monday and $40 on Tuesday, is the LSU chapter of Break Away, a national non-profit organization devoted to alternative break service programs for college students. The group went to San Juan this past year. United Farm Workers of America, the labor union partnering with them for the project, asked them to return because volunteers are hard to come by at Christmas time. UFW pays for home-building supplies while student volunteers provide the labor. Ferniz said more than 76,000 farm workers and their families live in the region they plan to visit. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, more than 360,000 migrant farm workers and their families resided in Texas in 2000. Migrant farm workers relocate during the growing season to harvest crops. Student volunteers will build homes for them because their low pay is often not sufficient to buy or rent a decent house. “Most of them make between five and six thousand (dollars) per year,” Scelfo said. They will inform the farmers of their legal rights as agricultural employees. For example, farm workers must be paid every two weeks or twice a month. The group started at LSU with a trip to Atlanta during spring break in 2004. They facilitated games for the Boys and Girls Club and served food at Cafe 458, an area restaurant for the homeless. “We dressed up as waiters for them and helped them get back their dignity,” Ferniz said. Scelfo said ASB makes three trips a year during school holidays. She said making a trip outside the United States is an option if the funding becomes available.
“We experience the challenges they’re facing,” she said of their travels. “We help them with those efforts and try to bring those efforts back to our community.”
 
Contact Chris Day at [email protected]