Going to Immokalee

"The RPCV Global Village: When service abroad comes Home"

Our RPCV Global Village crew was brought together by volunteer extraordinaire Greg Plimpton to help a farmwokers community in Immokalee, FL. Greg is at far left, the whole crew in the middle. These awesome volunteers made my 80th birthday special, lower left with cake & a t-shirt signed by the crew that I will cherish forever. Photos by Linda Smittle.

Janice in garden

I turned 80 in Immokalee, Florida, with a RPCV (Returned Peace Corps Volunteer) Global Village project brilliantly organized and managed by the indefatiquable Greg Plimpton, Peace Corps volunteer extraodinaire. The Global Village brings the technical skills, experience, and worldview that PCVs gained during their service overseas to aid the underserved immigrant and farmworker populations of the Southwest Florida agricultural area.

But it wasn't just another birthday. It was a celebration of reunion and community.  It was a celebration of what happens when you bring together former Peace Corps workers who served in countries around the world and put them to work here at home.

Kathryn planting at Mision Peniel

K planted a whole new garden
by himself!

J shucking corn, i think it was

K & Linda seeding

We were a group of six RPCVs from around the US. Our crew consisted of  Janice (J) and Ken (K) Tefft, a super husband and wife team from Vermont, who served in Ghana and Thailand. Linda Smittle from Kansas who also served in Ghana and Thailand. Kathryn O'Leary from Denver, who served in Belize. Janice Flahiff (Liberia) and me (Ukraine) from Toledo, Ohio.  Kathleen Birch from Beach Haven, New Jersey, was also on our team. She along with Greg drove us back and forth to Immokalee from Fort Myers every day, an hour drive each way. Kathleen worked right alongside us. Greg, who served many tours of duty in Peru, Mexico, Panama and other places, made sure we were housed, fed, placed, and entertained, and that we had our Global Village shirts and name tags. He has wonderful plans for the future of  RPCV Global Village.

We were the 10th group in this first year of operation, and we were also the oldest (ages 65-80, with me bringing up the average). The oldest group but not the slowest and surely not slackers.

Linda and Lupita, one of our superisors along with Rick,
planting. We learned\ a lot about farming & gardening. 

We worked like energizer bunnies at Mision Peniel, under guidance from Rick and Lupita, to seed, weed, plant and harvest their bountiful  gardens. I learned a lot about real gardening from Master Gardners. On Friday, our last day, we joined other volunteers from Vanderbilt Presbyterian Church to prepare clothes (tons of them) and other items to give to community members.  Volunteers, inluding students from Immokalee Soccer School and Academy, great kids,  joined together to serve over 450 people, happy to meet, greet and share. Everyone received fresh produce and a full bag of groceries, as well as clothing and something special to share with the kids.  As a wise volunteer put it:  "If you ever wonder what God's face (Peniel) looks like, come and see on Friday afternoons!" 

It truly felt like we were working under the Eye of God, the meaning of Mision Peniel.

In addition to our extensive garden work at Mision Peniel, we worked in the gardens at the University of Florida Mother and Child Clinic, which serves hundreds of immigrants and newcomers who have many stories to tell of hardship and hope. We cleaned up, weeded, pruned, and raked one garden, and planted veggies in another. Previously Greg and volunteers had planted slash pines around the perimeter and they are growing nicely.

Linda and Kathleen on ladders. Kathryn spackling. Ken with a trash bag, and
hardworking Janice taking a much-needed break.

We also joined long-serving volunteers from the Collier County Habitat for Humanty, one of the oldest and largest affiliates. They are building a 61-home community that is awesome to behold. Student volunteers joined here as well, and were fun to talk with. A few brave souls from our RPCV crew climbed ladders to hammer and spackle. The rest of us kept our feet on the ground and filled dozens of large black plastic bags with trash, debris, and all the other stuff that litters any large construction site. Back and forth to the dumpsters we went with our bags filled to the brim.

It was a joy to work together, this team of  active oldtimers. And it was a joy just to be together.

Here are some of the things we enjoyed together.  2nd row far right, Linda's Thai string bracelet. 

We watched beautiful sunsets and moon rises. We ate together in Greg's camper, a few times at local restaurants, at a park near our work site with our homemade lunches. We visited a Ranger station under Live Oaks dripping with Spanish Moss. We walked the trails of an Auduban park and the Six-Mile Cyprus Slough ( pronounced slew). We visited the Roberts Cattle Museum, which houses a great exhibit of Florida cowboy days, a winner for its sensitivity to the diverse peoples of the time and the great storyboards that accompanied the art and artifacts. We strolled along the shore of Fort Myers' Ralph Bunche Beach at sunset (which also has a story to tell), and collected shells along the beach of Sanibel Island.

Ken's gourmet pasta primavera.

Greg made sure we had a good breakfast. 

We shared meals, conversations, memories, games, walks, special times. We talked about our PC experiences.  On Friday March 13, Ken, with J's expert assistance, made us a delicious authentic pasta primavera, and afterwards, among a bustle of activity and whispers, brought forth a brightly lit cake! No it didn't have 80 candles on it. It glowed from the love and sharing that went into this memorable meal. This incomparable RPCV team also gave me an extraordinary creative t-shirt that Linda had found at Goodwill and that she prettied up and everyone signed, heralding this volunteer's 80 years of making history! It brought tears to my eyes. I wore that shirt for the next few days and didn't want to take it off, a forever gift from kindred spirits who already give so much to others.

As we snuggled into our bunks for one last night, Kathryn gave each of us a card with sayings for life and dreams, and Linda came around to each of us and gave us a Thai blessing to take home. She gently wrapped a string bracelet around out wrists and wished us well, and gave us the opportunity to bless her in return.

From Greg: "Thank you ALL for being the best group of volunteers EVER !! You bonded and worked together like a family."  That was us! But we want to thank Greg as well, for making this dream of an RPCV Global Village a reality. 

Notes:

Kathryn doing some heavy-
duty trail cleaning.

1.  From Wikipedia: "Immokalee is an unincorporated town in Collier County, FL, just north of Naples. It is a community of about 24 square miles with a population of about 25,000. It is 70% Hispanic, 18% African American, about 3% white, the rest a mixture of Native American, South Asian and Pacific Islanders.  The medium income for a household is about $24, 315 and for a family $22,628. About 34.6% of families were below the poverty line, including 26.9% of those over the age of 65. /Being unincorporated, the village has no local government of its own and is governed by Collier County, as are the public schools. /Originally the region was occupied by the Calusa Indians and centuries later by the Seminole, after they moved down from the northern part of Florida. Initially the settlement was known as Gopher Ridge by the Seminole and Miccosukee Indians. Immokalee means "your home" in the Mikasuki language./When the swamps were drained in the region, agriculture became the dominant industry. European American hunters, trappers, Indian traders, cowmen, and missionaires moved in before the development of permanent villages.  The first permanent settlemet was founded in 1872.  In 1921, the Atlantic Coast Railroad extended its Haines City Branch south to Immojalee. The railroad was removed in the late 1980s./ The Immokalee area today remains heavily agricultural.  It is one of the major centers of tomato growing in the US.  In 1960 CBS news anchor Edward R. Murrow reported on the working conditions in the surrounding farms for his "Harvest of Shame" report for CBS Reports, which described the harsh lives of  migrant workers."

Kathryn and Kathleen clearing trails at Pepper Farm.

2. Harvest of Shame: CBS News, The day after Thanksgiving in 1960, CBS REPORTS presented what would become one of the most important documentaries of all time, about the plight of the men and women who had provided the holiday feast. They were America's migrant farm workers. It was intended, the producer said, "To shock the consciousness of the nation." And it did. "They are the migrants, workers in the sweat shops of the soil - the harvest of shame," CBS News correspondent Edward R. Murrow said. He called them "the  forgotten people; the under-educated; the under-fed." With raw and striking images, Murrow's documentary exposed the poverty and deplorable working conditions endured by America's 2 to 3 million migrant farm workers. Men, women and children who harvested crops for the best-fed nation on earth earned barely enough to feed themselves. Today, mirant work is still backbreaking. Over the years, the faces in the fields have changed from poor whites and poor blacks to poor Hispanics, but pay remains low and benefits are few to nonexistent. 

3,  https://bittersoutherner.com/a-hunger-for-tomatoes-shane-mitchell?fbclid=IwAR0EBtJwjdiPae3PVV5O0gUTUVG0DLpG4Hr7hNTm1wfFecOVWLd5B21hDnk  with thanks to Ken for sharing this great article.

"Immokalee (pronounced Im-MOCK-a-lee) is ground zero for Florida’s commercial tomato crop. Broad, flat fields line the main road into town from the Gulf Coast, and on certain stretches, high chain-link fences prevent panthers from crossing the asphalt that cuts across their swampy Western Everglades habitat. Loaded tractor-trailers rumble out of packinghouses. A pinhooker market in an open lot sells produce too ripe for long-distance shipping. A party store advertises piñatas, and bottles of Mexican Coca-Cola fill the cold drink case at Mr. Taco. Waitresses in bustiers and fishnet stockings circle gamblers hunched over slots at the Seminole casino. Street roosters wage turf wars in grassy ditches. Blue tarps still patch damaged roofs long after Hurricane Irma pummeled Florida last year. In an improvised courtyard between ramshackle mobile homes with boarded-up windows, little girls build sand castles in the dirt pretending it’s the beach. . . ."