Dolores Huerta – “Sí se puede”
Dolores Huerta
Dolores Huerta is a civil rights activist and community organizer. She has worked for labor rights and social justice for over 50 years. In 1962, she and Cesar Chavez founded the United Farm Workers union. She served as Vice President and played a critical role in many of the union’s accomplishments for four decades. In 2002, she received the Puffin/Nation $100,000 prize for Creative Citizenship which she used to establish the Dolores Huerta Foundation (DHF). DHF is connecting groundbreaking community-based organizing to state and national movements to register and educate voters; advocate for education reform; bring about infrastructure improvements in low-income communities; advocate for greater equality for the LGBT community; and create strong leadership development. She has received numerous awards: among them The Eleanor Roosevelt Humans Rights Award from President Clinton in 1998. In 2012 President Obama bestowed Dolores with The Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States.
Dolores Huerta Foundation
“Inspiring and organizing communities to build volunteer organizations empowered to pursue social justice.”
The Dolores Huerta Foundation is a 501 (c)3 organization on a mission to inspire and organize communities to build volunteer organizations empowered to pursue social justice. DHF organizes at the grassroots level developing natural leaders with hands-on training through collective action working to establish Vecinos Unidos (Neighbors United) chapters in some of the most disenfranchised regions of California. In it’s 15 years DHF has formed chapters in Lost Hills and Cutler-Orosi, with currently active Vecinos Unidos groups in Arvin, Lamont, Weedpatch, Greenfield, and Bakersfield (Kern County) Tulare, Lindsay, and Woodlake (Tulare County) and Caruthers, Sanger and Parlier (Fresno County).
Our social justice grassroots organizing work is focused on Education, Health and Safety, LGBTQIA+, Equality and Civic Engagement. DHF is committed to dismantling the school-to-prison pipeline through student and parent training for meaningful engagement and advocacy. DHF works to create healthy, accepting supportive environments for LGBTQIA+ youth and family members by building support networks and safer school climates. Through our integrative voter and Census outreach and education, DHF has been instrumental in passing progressive local and statewide legislation to increase funding for public services.
