Local Social Justice Group Donates Funds to Immigrant Worker Safety Net Fund

Pasadenans Organizing for Progress (POP!) announced on Sunday that it has donated $5,000 to the National Day Laborer Organizing Network’s (NDLON) Immigrant Worker Safety Net Fund.

POP! and NDLON have partnered on social justice issues in Pasadena including worker and immigrant rights.

According to a written statement, the donation is a way of standing alongside our vulnerable neighbors during this health and economic crisis.

According to an article in Pasadena Now earlier this month, work has all but dried up at the Job Center on Lake Avenue.

The COVID-19 pandemic is having detrimental impact on local day laborers and low wage workers who often include, undocumented immigrant and migrant workers. Many service sector jobs have vanished as restaurants and small businesses have closed, and day laborer jobs have disappeared. Because these workers do not have jobs in the workforce where they can work from home, they now find themselves without any way to provide for their families.

“The Pasadena Job Center located on North Lake has already experienced the blow of this state of emergency” said Florence Annang POP! Co-chair in a prepared statement. “As hundreds of day laborer and low wage worker families in our community struggle to make ends meet, our gift to the immigrant worker safety net fund seeks to support Pasadenans who are suffering economically.”

To make matter worse day laborers will not be receiving stimulus checks.

“Day laborer and low wage worker families are the backbone of our communities though they have always lived in the shadows,” Annang said. “At this critical time in our Nation’s history, it is more important than ever before that social justice leaders and organizations take action to support the most vulnerable in our community.

Community members are invited to go to poppasadena.org/ and make contributions in support of Pasadena’s Immigrant Worker Safety Net Fund.

Pasadenans Organizing for Progress is a multi-issue community organization whose mission is to make Pasadena a more just, fair, and inclusive city.