On a recent December afternoon, about 30 volunteers gathered at St. Francis Retreat Center in San Juan Bautista to give their efforts to the sprawling, multifaceted Farmworker Caravan—an annual holiday donation drive for families in need in five counties.
Labeled a “Santa’s Workshop,” the Dec. 3 volunteer work session was just one cog in the vast machinery that makes the caravan possible.
On Dec. 3, the volunteers—who came from as far away as Morgan Hill and San Jose—were producing handmade stockings to give to the children of farmworkers for the holidays. Scraps and sheets of holiday-themed fabric were scattered on tables while volunteers cut out designs for the custom stockings.
Sewing experts—some of them volunteers from the Silicon Valley Modern Quilt Guild—sewed the shapes together at four “sewing stations” in a meeting room inside the retreat center’s main building. After the stockings were cut, sewn together and decorated, the work continued as volunteers stuffed the newly created stockings with holiday goodies.
Volunteers on Dec. 3—including at an evening Santa’s Workshop session—had a goal of making 250 stockings for the children of farmworker families. Those will go toward the goal of producing (or obtaining), filling and distributing at least 5,000 stockings for the 2024 Farmworker Caravan, said Darlene Tenes, founder of the caravan.
“It is very special to receive something that is homemade,” Tenes said. “We fill (the stockings) with toys and candy and cariño, which is love, and then we deliver them to the farmworkers.”
A number of other Santa’s Workshop work sessions have been scheduled from San Jose to South Valley and the Central Coast, all contributing to the overall goal. People are welcome to donate finished stockings to the stocking drive as well, Tenes noted.
And that’s just one aspect of the Farmworker Caravan, which started in 2020 as an effort to provide emergency supplies to area farmworkers during the Covid-19 pandemic. The giving effort continued as farmworkers continued to struggle with heatwaves, wildfires and the continuing pandemic.
Now, the Farmworker Caravan partners with numerous nonprofit agencies to provide gifts, clothing, food and other items to farmworkers’ families in San Benito, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Monterey and San Luis Obispo counties. The season-long caravan effort includes a tamale fundraiser, a Dec. 16 Christmas Caravan in Half Moon Bay, as well as deliveries of stockings to Central Coast locations on Dec. 15 and Dec. 22.
Volunteers at the Dec. 3 Santa’s Workshop were represented by some of the Farmworker Caravan’s established partners—including the Quilt Guild and Las Comadres of San Juan Bautista—as well as individuals who responded to an announcement on social media.
Sasha Galdos and Karen Stacy, representing the Mary Velasco Sellen Senior Center in San Juan Bautista, were eager to attend the Dec. 3 workshop as soon as they heard about it. Galdos and Stacy are granddaughter and daughter, respectively, of the local senior center’s founder.
“We’re here today because we heard about this event they’re doing for the farmworkers to stuff stockings, and because we have natural talents of sewing and crafting ability,” Galdos said.
Stacy added, “It’s a blessing to be able to help those in need.”
Although the Farmworker Caravan has been serving families in San Benito County since 2020, the Dec. 3 session was the first Santa’s Workshop volunteer gathering there, Tenes said.
St. Francis Retreat Center was a natural location for a workshop, not only due to its welcoming setting but also because Tenes has previously worked with the center’s Executive Director, Sarah Nordwick, who previously worked at the local food bank.
Nordwick said the retreat center also partners with the caravan to host an annual retreat for farmworkers in May.
“With this type of work, the Farmworker Caravan being able to help bring the holiday spirit to families who feed us year-round, is something that we truly live by as Franciscans,” Nordwick said. “Being able to offer this space for that to happen is truly amazing.”
For more information about the Farmworker Caravan, including how to volunteer or donate, visit farmworkercaravan.org.
