8
street roots
June 7, 2013
Right, girls listen as Angela Cail from
Oregon State University talks with them
about the different kinds o f foods pictured on
the pieces o f paper that were folded inside
plastic eggs used for an egg toss. Pictures of
fresh food such as bananas were placed on
the wire tree before them. Other types o f food
were placed in the miniature shopping cart
on the table. Accompanying her were O SU
students who work with students on
academics.
Below, a student holds a book to practice the
alphabet.
The
photographer:
JUait Borrud
»0015
strives to serve an
often-forgotten
population within
Oil* CrOSsMOOSOiy*
offered my
a
services to assist
in this project that
showed an
organization's effort
to increase proper shelter and
childhood education for people in
its community.
"Caring for others — I just wanted
to honor that with my camera.
But, as b often the case when
spending some time on a project, X
learned as 1 worked with my
camera. X saw good people
working hard to assist others in
their quest for a better life."
Alan Borrud is an experienced freelance
photojournalist with a newspaper and
editorial background, living in Portland.
Over the years his work has included
documentary work on a domestic abuse
shelter, a small town high school prom, a
skateboard church preacher and a Russian
Orthodox Old Believer teaching in a
Woodburn grade school.
To view these and more
photos from the complete
farmworker project, go to
news.streetroots.org
Land of plenty
etween 90,000 and 150,000
farmworkers keep Oregon’s billion-
dollar agricultural industry humming
throughout the year. But its statistically
unlikely that their children will follow in their
footsteps. It’s a fact not lost on the children
growing up in families working to better their
future.
On these two pages, Street Roots presents
the second of a two-part photo series by
photographer Alan Borrud, illustrating the
families transformed by the Farmworker
Housing Development Corporation. The
F H D C , a nonprofit based in Woodburn, is
working to fill the enormous deficit, building
community-based properties to provide stable,
supportive housing for this vital labor force.
Central to the organization are services for
the children, from the community
environment of the organization’s housing
complexes to early children literacy and after
school programs. Most of the families in the
FH D C units come from impoverished
backgrounds — 90 percent were technically
homeless before they arrived. The
organization emphasizes programs to prevent
the next generation from experiencing the
same.
These pages offer a look inside the work of
the FH D C youth programs.
B
ngvoices.net
P H O TO BY A L A N BORRUD
Cinco, cinco! Excitement runs high as Ana Plascencia, a mother
and volunteer, reads from a book about numbers and elicits responses
from younger children gathered around her at the after-school program.
She also teaches other mothers to read and write. Fabiola Camacho,
the after-school director, is unequivocal in her belief the program
couldn't function without volunteer support.