UC Davis Awards Grant to GSA for Continued COVID Prevention and Vaccination Efforts

The need for continued COVID-19 prevention education and vaccinations remains a priority for essential workers. Recognizing this need, the Western Center for Agricultural Health and Safety at University of California, Davis has awarded the Grower Shipper Association of Central California (GSA) with a grant to continue its COVID-19 prevention strategies for farm employees in the Salinas and desert growing regions.

The grant will help support GSA’s ongoing efforts focused on outreach on virus prevention, quarantined housing for workers who may have been exposed or show symptoms of the virus as well as conducting COVID testing and administering life-saving vaccinations.

“This isn’t the time to become complacent about the pandemic and its impact on essential workers,” says Christopher Valadez, GSA President. “We have to stay focused and driven to protect workers and we are very appreciative of UC Davis providing supplemental funding to support furthering GSA’s prevention strategies.”

The almost $200,000 grant was awarded to GSA on November 15. GSA’s work has received state and national recognition for its innovative and aggressive prevention efforts. The organization’s quarantined housing program became a model for Governor Gavin Newsom’s “Housing for the Harvest” initiative. The vaccination effort conducted by GSA and its partner, Clinica de Salud, are credited with vaccinating a majority of the Salinas region’s farm employees. Currently 90% of farm workers in the region have received vaccinations.

Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra visited a GSA/Clinica vaccination clinic in Salinas in July and stated: “The Grower-Shipper Association took on the task of making sure that the employers helped workers understand and it was the Clinica de Salud that made it possible for the shots to get in arms,” Becerra said. “That partnership, with the help of all the folks who are here, made it possible for farm workers in this county to have a higher rate of vaccination than the general population.”

“We thank UC Davis’s Western Center for Agricultural Health and Safety for recognizing GSA’s work through this grant award,” Valadez says. “Essential workers must feel reassured about their safety in the workplace and have the necessary tools to protect themselves and their families. GSA is committed to that and this grant will help us to work with agricultural employers to continue to honor that commitment.”