EMLC Helping to Organize 2009 Solidarity Harvest

The Solidarity Harvest is about local food, helping out those who've been laid off, and so much more! Now is a great time to get involved with the 2009 Solidarity Harvest, so contact Laura Binger at 989-5860 or laurab@foodandmedicine.org to find out how you can help!

The Eastern Maine Labor Council endorsed these principles for the 2009 Solidarity Harvest at our September 2009 meeting:

1. Thanksgiving Meals. Organize unions, farmers, small businesses and workers to come together to provide locally grown or sourced food for Thanksgiving meals to about 150 laid off workers and families with children in trying circumstances.

2. Social Movement. Encourage conversations about, directly support, and create a regional social movement for the following interdependent issues that are each necessary to ensure that all children have access to healthy, sustainable, local food:

• good jobs with dignity for families
• local, sustainable, family agriculture
• a real social safety net, so that nobody has to choose between food, medicine, housing and other basic necessities

3. Community Organizing. Organize a broad and dynamic group of organizations--including faith groups, unions, farms, farm organizations, small businesses, and government bodies--to support the Solidarity Harvest goals.

4. Leadership Development. Organize those who are directly affected (i.e. families, children, farmers, laid-off workers, working poor, those who work with children) to have a role in creating awareness & change on the issues that Solidarity Harvest supports.

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Sixth Annual Solidarity Harvest Brings Locally-Produced Thanksgiving Meals to Laid Off Workers

Since 2003, EMLC and Food AND Medicine's Solidarity Harvest has brought quality Thanksgiving meals to over 3,300 laid off workers and their family mambers in Eastern Maine. In addition, the program brings unions, farmers, and small businesses together in solidarity to work toward long-term solutions that will build our local economy and keep jobs in Maine. As much as possible, we buy or accept donations of only fresh, local foods.

The following is a sampling of the great media coverage we got!

• Laid-off workers get Thanksgiving gift (Bangor Daily News)
• Labor And Community Activists Assist Laid Off Workers (MPBN)
• Laid Off Mill Workers Get Thanksgiving Meal (WLBZ)
• Solidarity Harvest: Sharing at A Time of Giving Thanks (IBEW 1837)

This year's program benefited 150 laid off workers and their families in:

• Ashland (Pinkham Sawmill)
• Millinocket (Katahdin Paper)
• Baileyville (Domtar Paper)
• Old Town (Red Shield)
• Brewer (DHL Delivery)

None of this would be possible without the help of many unions, farms, faith organizations, local businesses, laid off workers, and other volunteers who have and continue to donate money, time, and produce.

The EMLC extends tremendous thanks to all of the following unions and other organizations for their support and/or donations:

• Food AND Medicine
• IBEW 1837
• CWA 1400
• Machinists Local S6
• Central Maine Labor Council
• USW Local 9
• USW 1310
• USW 1188
• Firemen & Oilers Local 3
• Ofelia's Community Resource Center
• Unitarian Universalist Church of Bangor
• Unitarian Universalist Church of Castine
• Congregation Beth-El
• First Congregational Church of Brewer
• St. John's Episcopal Church, Bangor
• Bangor Hydro Electric Company