SILVERTONAPPEAL.COM
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WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 29, 2021
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$10M allocated to
Oregon farmworkers
impacted by weather
Dora Totoian
Salem Statesman Journal
USA TODAY NETWORK
Miss Oregon Petite 2020 and 2022 Kira Johnson. MISS CODI MAE PHOTOGRAPHY
Miss Oregon Petite
educates about opioid
crisis after brother’s death
Tracy Loew
Salem Statesman Journal
USA TODAY NETWORK
This is part of a weekly series intro-
ducing readers to individuals who are
passionate about our Mid-Valley com-
munity.
On April 24, 2017, four days before her
17th birthday, Kira Johnson’s life
changed forever.
Her brother, Isaiah Ganz, was found
dead of a fentanyl overdose at 19.
“He was the most amazing person,
could change the entire energy of a room
with his laugh and smile,” Johnson said.
“He was my best friend. I lost someone
who was supposed to be there forever.”
A few weeks later, a close classmate
at Silverton High School, who also had
substance abuse issues, died from sui-
cide, Johnson said.
After her brother’s death, as Johnson
struggled with her grief, she said she
watched her father, who had discovered
the body and was overwhelmed with
guilt, fall deeper into his own addiction.
Johnson’s parents had divorced
when she was 6.
The events sent Johnson, an honors
student who participated in leadership
and music, into a spiral.
“I started stealing my mom’s alcohol
when she wasn’t home or when she was
asleep upstairs,” she said. “This brought
me to a very unhealthy mental state, and
I did a lot of things that hurt the people I
love.”
“I could’ve been next,” she said. “This
caused me more pain. I felt stuck and
like I wanted to run away from myself. I
felt ashamed.”
In 2018, Johnson graduated high
school, and started at Chemeketa Com-
munity College.
Then, in early 2020, she saw an ad for
a pageant, aimed at petite women like
her. Johnson is 5 feet 1 inch tall.
Petite USA, founded in 2009, requires
contestants to choose a platform, and
focuses on empowering women.
She applied, not expecting to win, but
thinking the experience might help her
come to terms with her own past, and
help other people.
She chose the opioid crisis as her
platform. Opioids include prescription
painkillers and illicit drugs such as fen-
tanyl and heroin. They are highly addic-
tive.
To her surprise, Johnson was chosen
as Miss Oregon Petite 2020.
Because of the pandemic, Johnson
hasn’t been able to do many public ap-
pearances or speaking engagements
during her reign. But here is what she
tells people:
Oregon has one of the highest rates of
misuse of prescription opioids in the na-
tion, and illicit fentanyl-related deaths
are increasing dramatically.
In 2017, the year her brother died,
Marion County’s overdose rate was the
highest in the state, she said.
And the drugs are everywhere.
Miss Oregon Petite 2020 and 2022
Kira Johnson readies donations for
the homeless. COURTESY OF KIRA JOHNSON
After a summer where a farmworker
died during a record-breaking heat wave,
the Oregon Legislature has designated
$10 million to farmworkers who miss
work due to extreme heat or smoke.
Lawmakers during last week's special
session allocated the money to the Ore-
gon Worker Relief Coalition, a program
that provides financial relief to undocu-
mented Oregonians who have lost wages
during the pandemic.
Employers often pay farmworkers by
the amount they harvest, meaning many
workers may feel pressured to earn as
much money as possible during short
seasons and may continue working in
dangerous conditions, a point advocates
made during last summer’s heat waves.
The $10 million infusion to the Oregon
Worker Relief Coalition means farmwork-
ers have more of a choice when it comes
to working through days with high tem-
peratures or poor air quality.
Farmworkers’ average yearly earnings
are between $20,000 and $24,999, ac-
cording to the National Agricultural
Workers’ Survey, and they are at least 20
times more likely than other workers to
die of heat stress, according to the CDC.
“Our community comes from a line of
really hard work, like ‘I got to work hard
even in the most adverse circumstances’
because that’s how historically this work
has been. But your health is really impor-
tant and your body is really important,”
said Martha Sonato, chair of the Oregon
Worker Relief Coalition and political di-
rector at PCUN, Oregon’s farmworker
union.
The money was part of a larger
drought relief package, which designated
$40 million in a forgivable loan program
for farmers who suffered from drought
and other natural disasters. Climate
change is predicted to make disasters like
heat waves more frequent.
Details on how the money will be ad-
ministered are sparse at this point, Sona-
to said, but she anticipates eligibility will
mirror that for the Oregon Worker Relief
quarantine fund.
Farmworkers will likely be able to ap-
ply both if their employer sends them
home on hot or smoky days and doesn’t
compensate them, and if workers leave
the fields voluntarily those days, she said.
The weather fund will be open to all Ore-
gon farmworkers.
The funds will also apply retroactively
to people who stayed home on hot days
last summer, Sonato said.
The coalition’s relief fund and quaran-
tine fund, which provide financial sup-
port for workers who’ve lost wages due to
Get a tax deduction and help
fund a reporting position
Cherrill Crosby
Salem Statesman Journal
USA TODAY NETWORK
“It’s not just in adults. It’s in our
high schools. It’s in our middle
schools,” she said.
“I really want to get the word out
there about what’s going on. I have met
so many people who don’t even know
what the opioid epidemic is,” she said.
“If one more person is educated and
knows about it, that makes me feel like
I’m just doing good for my brother and
my friend.”
Meanwhile, Johnson has found oth-
er ways to serve the community.
She volunteers at Salem’s ARCHES
Center for homeless services several
times a month. Following the 2020 La-
bor Day fires, she collected donations
for people who lost their homes. This
year, she helped replace items people
lost when local homeless camps were
flooded.
Johnson, who now lives in Keizer,
said she will continue participating in
the pageant world.
She competed in the Miss Petite
USA pageant in March, placing in the
top 10 and winning an award for her
community service.
She was named Miss Oregon Petite
2022. And she’ll compete in the Miss
Petite USA pageant again next August.
But win or lose, Johnson said, she’ll
keep educating people about the
opioid crisis.
“Because I know what this pain
feels like, I want to help others,” she
said. “If I can spare people from the
pain I felt, I want to.”
If you have an idea for someone we
should profile for this series, please
email Statesman Journal senior news
editor Alia Beard Rau at arau@gan-
nett.com.
Tracy Loew is a reporter at the
Statesman Journal. She can be
reached
at
tloew@statesmanjournal.com, 503-
399-6779
or
on
Twitter
at
@Tracy_Loew.
the pandemic or had to miss work due to
quarantining, respectively, have distrib-
uted about $85 million since June 2020, ac-
cording to their most recent monthly re-
ports.
The coalition also administers a small
enterprise fund for business owners who
were ineligible for the Paycheck Protection
Program.
The relief and small enterprise funds
have temporarily paused applications. The
coalition plans to ask for an additional $60
million during February’s short legislative
session, Sonato said.
The coalition’s distribution of the funds
reflects the trust workers have in the pro-
gram, Sonato said, which prompted Gov.
Kate Brown’s office to propose the coalition
distribute the $10 million for missing work
due to extreme heat and smoke.
Some state agencies, such as Oregon
Housing and Community Services, have
struggled to disburse millions of dollars in
pandemic relief.
“Governor Brown believes that all Ore-
gonians should have access to measures
that will help protect their health and their
lives,” Liz Merah, a spokesperson for the
governor, wrote in an email. “Following this
year’s extreme heat events, statewide
drought conditions, and another challeng-
ing wildfire season, it became clear that ad-
ditional protections are needed for workers
who may be impacted by these conditions.”
Oregon OSHA, the state’s workplace
safety agency, enacted temporary rules
protecting workers during high temper-
atures and smoke last summer, a choice
worker advocates had called for long before
Sebastian Francisco Perez died at St. Paul’s
Ernst Nursery & Farms during the sum-
mer’s first heat wave. Some advocates have
called the temporary heat rules the most
protective in the nation.
The agency has general requirements
on providing water, shade and breaks dur-
ing extreme heat but no specific, detailed
requirements, and is in the process of es-
tablishing permanent heat and smoke
standards with input from growers, indus-
try representatives and worker advocates.
A PCUN survey of Marion County farm-
workers over the summer showed employ-
er compliance with various parts of the
temporary rules varied widely. For exam-
ple, about half of people surveyed said their
employer consistently gave them a paid 10-
minute break every two hours when the
heat index passed 90 degrees, while about
75% said their employer consistently pro-
vided shade in the break area.
Dora Totoian covers agricultural work-
ers through Report for America, a program
that aims to support local journalism and
democracy by reporting on under-covered
issues and communities.
You can reach her at dtotoian@states-
manjournal.com.
Through a partner-
ship with Report for
America, the Statesman
Journal hired reporter
Dora Totoian in June to
cover the experiences of
agricultural workers in
the Mid-Willamette Val-
ley.
Report for America,
an initiative of the non-
profit media organiza-
tion, The GroundTruth
Project, pays for half of
Totoian's salary her first
year, while the States-
man Journal newsroom
and community part-
ners chip in the rest.
During the second year,
Report for America will
pay 40% of her salary.
You can help raise the
money for the match —
and get a tax deduction
for 2021, even if you
don't itemize when filing
your taxes, by typing
rb.gy/vgdyfs into your
internet address bar to
access the Report for
America
Statesman
Journal
fundraising
page.
In the midst of our
June heatwave, Totoian
revealed the process to
adopt excessive heat
rules for farmworkers
wasn't scheduled to be
completed until Sep-
tember.
She was soon report-
ing on the June 26 death
of Sebastian Francisco
Perez, a 38-year-old
farmworker who had
been changing sprinkler
lines at a St. Paul nurs-
ery as temperatures in the
area topped 104 degrees.
Days later, Gov. Kate
Brown directed Oregon
OSHA to adopt temporary
emergency rules for em-
ployees who work out-
doors in extreme heat.
Since then, Totoian
has covered everything
from OSHA rules to pro-
tect farmworkers from
smoke to the lack of over-
time pay for farmworkers
in Oregon, and children of
farmworkers furthering
their education to farm-
workers being dispropor-
tionately impacted by
COVID-19.
What to know about
the tax deduction
As part of the pandem-
ic relief program, Con-
gress authorized a provi-
sion that allows more
people to deduct dona-
tions to qualifying chari-
ties on their 2021 federal
income tax return.
The temporary law
does not require itemized
deductions on tax re-
turns. Cash donations of
up to $300 per individual
and up to $600 for mar-
ried couples filing jointly
must be made by Dec. 31.
Cash donations include
those made by check,
credit or debit cards.
Taxpayers can take the
deduction of up to $300
or $600 for donations
made when filing their
federal tax returns in
2022.
Thank you for consid-
ering a donation toward
our fundraising efforts.
For more information,
contact Cherrill Crosby,
the Statesman Journal's
executive editor, at ccros-
by@statesmanjour-
nal.com
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