On the morning of July 31, Idaho Organization of Resource Councils members Samantha Guerrero and Julia Santiago met at a Nampa Home Depot. Their cars, parked right next to each other, trunks open, were prepared for a distribution of aid to local farmworkers impacted by wildfire smoke and high summer temperatures.
They carried crates of Gatorade, N95 masks, protective gloves, eyewear – basic supplies needed by farmworkers to carry out rough, often unforgiving agricultural work across the state.
Soon, they would be driving 20 minutes away to a group of farmworkers combing through a corn cob field. Santiago and Guerrero said their mission, as well as that of the Idaho Organization of Resource Councils as an organization, is to provide rural immigrant workers with supplies needed for their day-to-day activities.
“Samantha and other members of Idaho Organization of Resource Councils noticed that there was a need for essential supplies, because there was essentially no organization that goes out to the fields and delivers gloves, masks, bandanas and water,” Santiago said in an interview with the Idaho Capital Sun. “One way they realized that they could help farmworkers was being able to purchase these items for them. That way, it is not coming from their paychecks.”
The organization channels aid through the JJ Saldaña Heat and Smoke fund, a community-based program that collects donations, supplies and other items for distribution to farmworkers exposed to smoke and heat.
The fund, which turned almost six years old, began during 2020 in an effort to help farmworkers with COVID-19 related expenses. During that time, undocumented workers could not receive stipends for medical or other necessities, so the fund stepped in to help, according to Guerrero.
“It’s an injustice to have the people who help feed us not always be able to provide food for themselves, and that is definitely something we saw during the pandemic,” Guerrero said. “People who didn’t have access to food or couldn’t leave their house, or they lived in rural areas and couldn’t go out to get healthy food at the grocery store … It really made us aware of so many injustices that our farmworker community faces.”
Since then, Santiago said they have “continued to do this fund to help farmworkers.”
Delivering supplies to Idaho farmworkers
Arriving at the first distribution site, Santiago parked her SUV on the side of the road, agricultural fields spanning wide on both sides.
She opened the trunk, pulled out a Gatorade freezer and set up other items inside the car, preparing a makeshift assembly line where farmworkers could pick up supplies.
Nearby, a foreman tasked with directing work and communicating with the Idaho Organization of Resource Councils for the supply drop approached. In a few minutes, and after the foreman had called a “quebrada” – Spanish slang for break – close to 10 farmworkers previously detassling corn in the fields formed a straight line behind the SUV.
One after the other, they grabbed drinks, a meal bar, protective gloves and masks for the smoke.
“(Aid) is very important, especially here in Idaho,” Santiago said of supply distributions. “In other states like Oregon and Washington, there are stricter regulations when it comes to workers getting breaks. But here in Idaho, there is not, and we want to support farmworkers as much as possible.”
Among the main threats facing farmworkers over the summer months is smoke and heat, Guerrero said, which in addition to long workdays, often insufficient pay and out-of-pocket expenses for basic gear can make work dangerous.
Wildfire smoke, like that lingering across much of Idaho, can create a myriad of health conditions from headaches, nausea and respiratory tract irritation, to more long-lasting problems like worsened asthma, according to the EPA.
Over the past months, the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality has issued multiple advisories warning of unhealthy air conditions in the state, as previously reported by the Sun.
Information about the effects of smoke exposure, however, went unnoticed by many farmworkers, according to Guerrero.
“We saw that the smoke health advisories have been that people should stay indoors, that it’s very unhealthy,” she said. “We were in Weiser, where there was a fire ongoing, and people had no idea about these advisories. They were just like ‘it’s hot,’ or they were feeling sick and they were thinking there was something else, but the symptoms correlate with the smoke.”
Through the fund, Guerrero said the Idaho Organization of Resource Councils aims to fill those gaps, bringing awareness and supplies that may not be available to farmworkers in Idaho.
Like Santiago, she gave the comparative example of Oregon, a state which she said provides more heat-related regulations around “equipment and standards for life: take rest breaks, shade, more water, and here we don’t really see that.”
Oregon’s Occupational Safety and Health Division announced in 2022 that it would establish permanent rules protecting farmworkers against heat and wildfire smoke.
The administrative orders established basic principles that employers must follow, such as providing shade in high-heat areas, cool drinking water and, in case of exposure to wildfire smoke, approved filtering respirators like N95 masks.
Idaho Administrative Code also maintains that employers should provide basic safety equipment to employees, but it does not make any particular mention of heat or smoke related protections. Available shade or water are not included.
“So for us, it’s important to be out in the fields reminding the farmworkers to … ‘drink water,’” Guerrero said.
“Today’s supposed to be 101 degrees; next week there’s going to be days (where) there’s going to be 105 degrees,” Santiago remarked. “And the smoke acts like another stressor for them.”
In these conditions, she said farmworkers “shouldn’t be buying stuff out of their pockets.”
Community involvement, crowdsourcing
Aid and supplies come primarily from community donors, which Santiago said the Idaho Organization of Resource Councils relies on for distribution.
“This is all mutual aid,” she said. “We accept both monetary donations and physical items with our fund … and then we also partner up with different businesses where we set up bins, and (people) can go to these places to drop off a case of water or a pack of Gatorades, whatever they can purchase for our farmworkers.”
Their main sought-after items include bottled water, bandanas for the heat, safety glasses, work gloves, coolers and other objects to stave off the heat, as broadcasted in an Instagram post.
During the July 31 supply distribution, one farmworker approached Santiago with his old set of gloves, a bright-green pair discolored around the fingers and palm after months of work.
Santiago said she believed the man might have gotten his old pair from them in a previous supply drop, but that over time, the gloves had deteriorated.
The event, and others like it, embodied what Santiago said the fund aimed to accomplish: give visibility to farmworkers.
“We just want to let farmworkers know that they’re not alone,” she said.
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