USDA grant brings some excluded worker payments

WASHINGTON — Several months after city and county officials denied requests from activist group Escucha Mi Voz in Washington, a recently announced grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture may bring some relief to community members who did not receive federal stimulus checks earlier in the pandemic.

The agency’s Food and Farmworker Relief Program has been awarded to several groups across the country. One of them, Catholic Charities USA, includes a coalition of groups, including Escucha Mi Voz Iowa, where organizers say their share will go to people in Columbus Junction, West Liberty, and Washington Iowa.

“(We) will bring in more than $1 million of federal pandemic relief money to rural Eastern Iowa, to benefit nearly 2,000 essential food production workers,” the news release said.

A grant recipient list and grant conditions from the USDA do not explicitly mention excluded workers, a population Escucha Mi Voz has focused its efforts on with local governments, to varying degrees of success.

Instead, the grant recipient list said the money must be used for “one-time direct relief payments of $600 to eligible frontline farm, meatpacking and grocery workers for expenses incurred due to the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Guillermo Trevino, a pastor at St. Joseph’s Church in Columbus Junction and West Liberty and board member of Escucha Mi Voz, said he was thrilled by the news, announced by the federal department on Tuesday.

“I’m very, very excited,” he said. “As a Catholic priest, Oct. 4 is the day of St. Francis of Assisi, who was very big on the poor and the least fortunate … I called it a miracle, I don’t think it was a coincidence, from my faith element. But I’m very pleased, very satisfied that it helps rural communities.”

Trevino said the group hoped to have checks distributed to people within 4-6 months, although the USDA was less precise about a time frame, saying, “Payments are not yet available, and each organization may have application periods that begin at different times,” in a notice attached to its own news release.

Some delay could come from the group’s efforts to determine exactly which recipients will be eligible for the direct payments.

“The USDA has certain guidelines, it’s going to take us a while to get it all organized,” Trevino said. “A lot of it’s still being arranged. It’s going to take us time to get everything figured out.”

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com