Shelley Davis Memorial Fund
Written by Steven Moore Sanchez Monday, 18 May 2009 10:24
When attorney Shelley Davis died on December 12, 2008, 2.5 million migrant and seasonal farmworkers lost one of the smartest, toughest, and most effective advocates they have ever had. Ms. Davis devoted more than 20 years, most of them spent with Farmworker Justice, to bettering the lot of perhaps this country's poorest and most overlooked workers.
Shelley's family and colleagues believe that the best way to honor her memory is to carry on her work. The Shelley Davis Memorial Fund was created to continue, on a long-term basis, Shelley's high-impact legal advocacy on behalf of America's farmworkers.
Shelley's thirty-year career as an attorney demonstrated her passionate belief in society's moral imperative to protect people whose civil and workplace rights are ignored or trampled on. No group of workers needs such protections more than farmworkers.
Shelley was extraordinarily creative and productive. She arranged for farmworkers to testify about unsafe working conditions before Congress and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA); secured positions for farmworkers on influential federal advisory bodies; devised innovative legal strategies to challenge the EPA's approval of highly toxic pesticides; built coalitions with environmental groups working on pesticides; and trained hundreds of promotores de salud who in turn trained thousands of farmworkers to reduce the risks of HIV/AIDS, pesticide poisoning, tuberculosis and other health risks. Shelley's advocacy won greater protections for farmworkers, as just three examples show:
• Congress passed, in the 2008 Farm Bill, a pesticide safety research program, which includes a longitudinal study on the relationship between farmworkers' pesticide exposure and cancer; designing biological tests for measuring pesticide poisoning; and developing tests to determine when it is safe to re-enter fields after pesticide spraying. [This is not on Report Activities, though it seems important]
• The EPA banned or is phasing out several toxic pesticides (dinoseb, guthion, and phosmet) and more may be eliminated in response to lawsuits Shelley co-counseled
• In 1992, the EPA adopted its Worker Protection Standard to protect farmworkers from pesticide exposure, and announced plans to strengthen it in 2010.
Shelley's successes were honored over the years, most recently with lifetime achievement awards from Beyond Pesticides (formerly National Coalition Against the Misuse of Pesticides) (2008), the National Legal Aid and Defender Association (2006), and EPA's award for dedicated service on its Children's Health Protection Advisory Committee (2007).
After her death, many farmworker advocates were moved to present tributes to Shelley's life and work. Migrant Clinicians' Network and Lideres Campesinas put on a beautiful tribute at a farmworker conference called the Western Migrant Stream Forum. Our 2009 Award Reception featured a short tribute to Shelley and the spring 2009 edition of our newsletter, Farmworker Justice News, is a special history of her legacy with and for Farmworker Justice.
Even as we mourn Shelley, Farmworker Justice has renewed its commitment to the standard of excellence she displayed. That commitment includes developing the long-term financial stability required to attract attorneys of Shelley's caliber.
The Shelley Davis Memorial Fund is a vital element in our plan. Our goal is to endow a permanent attorney position at Farmworker Justice and raise at least one million dollars by January 2010.
We ask you to make a tax-deductible donation to the Shelley Davis Memorial Fund to carry on Shelley's work on behalf of the nation's farmworkers.
Checks may be mailed to Shelley Davis Memorial Fund, Farmworker Justice, 1126 16th Street, N.W., Suite 270, Washington, D.C. 20036, or you may donate online with a credit card by clicking on the PayPal donate button in the box above. Farmworker Justice is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization.
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