Congregation Kol Ami will observe Tu B’Shvat with a seder on Sunday, Feb. 5, to honor and support the Migrant Farmworkers Assistance Fund (MFAF).
MFAF helps provide services including health care, child care, school enrollment, legal assistance, and food distribution to the migrant-farmworker community in Lafayette County.
Kol Ami and the MFAF emphasize how migrant and seasonal farmworkers are a crucial link in food’s journey from farm to table, often putting in long days doing backbreaking and repetitive labor on farms and orchards. They follow crops’ growing and harvest times — apple and peach season in Missouri, the citrus season in Florida or Texas, and the onion season in Georgia. Some stay year-round to maintain orchards and facilities.
Tu B’Shevat is known as the birthday of the trees and is connected to Israel’s agricultural cycle. It particularly celebrates fruit trees — apropos for Kol Ami’s Tu B’Shevat seder, given that the farmworkers work in apple and peach orchards.
MFAF and Kol Ami shared the story of Eugenio, a farmworker in his 60s, who has been coming and going to the United States since he was 15. He likes the Missouri area — the trees don’t have thorns, and he doesn’t get hurt. Francisca came for the apple season when she was eight months’ pregnant.
"Everything about their lives is uncertain," said Suzanne Gladney, director of MFAF.
The services provided by MFAF includes assistance for workers by following up with chronic and acute health issues, which can be neglected during the grind of their migrant lifestyle and work schedule.
Through outreach to the labor camps, MFAF builds relationships with the workers — who are in remote rural areas without transportation — and connects them to services. MFAF has known many of the workers and their families for more than 30 years.
"I haven’t seen any other social services like the one here. The people are very humane," said Luis, a migrant worker who used to oversee and care for orchards here year-round. "They help you with everything they can, even more than you think they could."
The Tu B'Shevat seder (led by Rabbi Doug Alpert) and program (with emcee Brian Greenwald) to honor this social-service nonprofit will start at 5 p.m. on Feb. 5. This event takes place at Guadalupe Center, 1015 Avenida Cesar E. Chavez, Kansas City, MO. There is a parking lot across from the entrance.
Those interested can learn more information and sign up at kolamikc.org/tu-bshvat-seder.html.