[New post] Yolo Growers & Farmworkers Festival returns to downtown Woodland Friday
Gerardo Zavala posted: "Woodland's Second Annual Yolo Growers & Farmworkers Festival will return to downtown Woodland this Friday, Oct. 6, welcoming guests to enjoy an evening filled with dancing, live music and delicious food. The 5:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. event aims to celebr" Daily Democrat
Woodland's Second Annual Yolo Growers & Farmworkers Festival will return to downtown Woodland this Friday, Oct. 6, welcoming guests to enjoy an evening filled with dancing, live music and delicious food.
The 5:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. event aims to celebrate the county's thousands of farmworkers who made putting food on the table possible throughout the turmoil of the COVID-19 pandemic and the supply chain and inflation issues that followed.
The 2022 event was held along Main Street, taking up the entire block between College and First Streets in the sweltering June heat. It featured dancing horses, a trick roper and performances from Banda La Octava Maravilla, Grupo Belico and Tamborazo Dinastia de Woodland.
Tamborazo Dinastia De Woodland — a local band — performs Friday, June 24, 2022, during the city's Yolo Growers & Farmworkers Festival in downtown Woodland. (Gerardo Zavala/Daily Democrat)
"No other community is doing a festival like this," Linda Henigan, then executive director for Woodland's Dinner on Main, said in a June 2022 interview. "It's so important to recognize our farmworkers and we just felt this was a way to honor them and let them know how important their work is to us."
Last year, the event was sponsored by Dinner on Main and organized in collaboration with Woodland. This year, Dinner on Main handed the event sponsorship to Brown Issues – a California youth leadership development organization from Sacramento with a branch in Yolo County.
Mayor Victoria Fernandez said she contacted the organization to sponsor the event because it initiated an annual Chicano Latino Heritage Month celebration two years ago that is held concurrently with the city's First Friday festivities along First Street in downtown Woodland.
"We combined the two events – First Friday and the Yolo Farmworkers Festival – to include the music, vendors and resources available for farmworker families to celebrate the contributions that they make to our community and to our county," Fernandez remarked.
The 2023 festival was moved to October instead of June to avoid the extreme heat that made attending last year's festival difficult for some.
"Hopefully we'll have the same kind of turnout," she emphasized. "Last year was very successful, a lot of community members participated and enjoyed the music and had an evening on Main Street and were able to also support our local businesses."
Furthermore, Mayor Fernandez and Brown Issues representatives recently held a burrito distribution at two Yolo County farms – Durst Organic Growers in Esparto and Full Belly Farm in Guinda – in an attempt to connect with local farmworkers and let them know about the festival.
Kimberly Gudino, statewide coordinator for Brown Issues, distributed burritos to farmworkers at both farms and explained the importance of the upcoming event.
"This was our way of showing up and letting them know that we really want to engage you," she said regarding the distribution. "Covering the cost of their lunch meals for different farm working sites was very important for us to be able to speak directly to the farmworkers."
Mayor Victoria Fernandez and Brown Issues representative Kimberly Gudino distribute burritos to Yolo County farmworkers on Wednesday, Sept. 27, at Durst Organic Growers in Esparto. (Gerardo Zavala/Daily Democrat)
Gudino explained that the festival will feature a resource section with 25 organizations that provide "an array of resources to farmworkers within the area" and a kid zone "so farmworkers who do have kids don't feel that they have to find a babysitter."
According to Gudino, $500 scholarships to Yolo County farmworkers' kids interested in pursuing higher education will also be available.
"We don't only want to show up once a year for farmworkers… so we're also planning efforts that go beyond this festival that we're really excited about," she highlighted. "All of these interactions and relationships we're building with the 'campesinos,' we're going to continue to build and strengthen that relationship."
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