GSA Awards Reflect the Power of Collaboration and Partnerships

The Grower Shipper Association of Central California (GSA) recently received two awards for its work to protect farm workers from the spread of COVID-19 through education outreach, quarantined housing programs and mass vaccinations clinics, which have provided over half of all vaccines to the region’s 85%+ fully vaccinated agricultural workforce.

On September 21, United Fresh Produce Association (UFPA) presented GSA with its “Produce Advocate of the Year” award, which was accepted by GSA President Christopher Valadez during UFPA’s Public Policy Conference in Washington DC. And, on October 2, the National Steinbeck Center in Salinas awarded GSA and Clinica del Salud with its Ag Leader Award for their collaborative efforts to vaccinate farm workers.

But what these awards really reflect is how partnerships formed with a shared commitment to break through barriers and advance solutions can achieve success. And partnerships and collaboration that leads to success takes many forms and many hands.

It takes GSA and Clinica’s committed staff who spent countless hours on efforts to ensure the clinics ran smoothly. It’s about ag employers who educated their workforce on the importance of vaccinations and then coordinated sign-ups and registrations for their employees through GSA/Clinica systems. It requires numerous and dedicated volunteers who gave up their Saturdays week after week to work at these vaccination clinics and, even when tired, infused these clinics with a celebratory spirit that made everyone smile and keep going.

And, these efforts weren’t just vital for protecting farm workers, they also protected our communities as well from the spread of this persistent virus by increasing the county-wide vaccination rate. And these programs were important for consumers who rely on our farmers and farm workers to provide a consistent supply of fruits and vegetables. We can’t do that without a healthy workforce.

We thank UFPA and the Steinbeck Center for these awards and recognition. But the collaborative spirit and the many hands will be what we see when we look at these awards and they will continually remind us of what can be accomplished when so many work together.