About AWAC
WHAT IS AWAC? AWAC is the Agricultural Workers Advocacy Coalition, a non-profit, tax-exempt volunteer-led organization whose mission is to welcome and serve as advocates for seasonal agricultural workers on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. AWAC volunteers are residents of the Eastern Shore or the Hampton Roads area, who are committed to assisting the workers who live and work here between April and October each year. These workers come to the U.S. legally with H2-A Visas, authorized by the Dept. of Labor. This Visa program ensures that there is adequate labor for American farms when local workers are unavailable or unwilling to perform this demanding outdoor work. The workers live here in rural camps, without their families, and generate significant economic value through the labor-intensive planting, harvesting, processing, and packaging of tomatoes, potatoes, or melons.
HISTORY: While individual church groups and organizations have informally welcomed and assisted these valuable workers during past years, AWAC was organized in 2022 as a more systematic effort to learn and address key issues, problems or concerns that arise. AWAC volunteers meet with groups of farm workers over informal dinner meetings (with simultaneous translation) to discuss their work and lives here, and to help them address major concerns. The coalition was established with the assistance and support of the Legal Assistance Justice Center, the Dos Santos Food Bank/Thrift Store in Onley, the Eastern Shore Chapter of Virginia Organizing, and the Episcopal Diocese of Southern Virginia. In 2025, AWAC was formally established as a Virginia non-profit organization, with tax exempt status under the IRS tax code (501c3). Donations to AWAC are tax deductible.
CURRENT ACTIVITIES: AWAC’s activities are developed in response to issues raised in discussions with the workers. In past years, it became apparent that there were major concerns about periodic food shortages and food insecurity in the camps. Workers send their earnings back home, but due to periodic lack of work (caused by inclement weather or management issues), workers sometimes do not receive wages for substantial periods. Also, because of the isolation of the workers in the remote farm camps, they suffer from a lack of transportation to distant towns and from the frequent absence of reliable cellphone/internet connections. For many workers, this makes it difficult—or even impossible—to communicate with local businesses, medical or emergency services, and, most importantly, their families. Our discussions with the workers have led AWAC to establish the following volunteer-based committees to address some of these problems:
Welcome Kits: On their arrival in the farm labor camps, AWAC provides toiletries, cotton socks, heat stress information, and other useful items. We also provide gently used sneakers throughout the season, so each worker will always have extra shoes to rotate and start the workday dry.
Food Security: In the periodic cases of food shortages, AWAC facilitates and/or provides food supplies from the Dos Santos, Eastern Shore, and Virginia state food banks.
Transportation: AWAC volunteer drivers provide transportation for workers from the camps to medical appointments at Eastern Shore Rural Health facilities and periodically provide transport to other locations as well (e.g., emergency flights home).
Internet Access: AWAC has established access to internet and cellphone connections in several remote farm camps via mobile satellite WiFi kits. More WiFi kits are needed.
Air Conditioning (Window Units): Increasing summer heat levels and concerns about possible incidents of heat stress/stroke has prompted AWAC to raise these issues with the farm owners. Through AWAC’s window air-conditioner campaign, we have acquired and installed over 100 new or gently used window AC units in the workers’ barracks during the 2025 season. More are needed.