Santa Paula Farmworker Memorial Fund

Established on:  October 3, 2006

Purpose of the fund:  The purpose of the fund is to support the creation and maintenance of a memorial monument which honors farmworkers nationwide.

Background:  In 2006, Albino Pineda drove through the fields of Ventura County when inspiration struck.  As he noticed the men and women working the fields, he reflected on his own work picking tomatoes during his youth.  Pineda approached Hilario Galeana at his Hilario’s Fine Art Studio in Ventura regarding a monument that would honor the nation’s farmworkers.  Scheduled for completion in the summer of 2010, this monument includes life-size bronze statues of two farm laborers on either side of a sandstone wall emblazoned with rising and setting suns and engraved with the names of 2,000 farmworkers.  The monument is on a plaza at Santa Barbara and Ninth streets near a museum on Ventura County’s agricultural heritage.