by WES FERGUSON
It’s been a good month for a Buda-based nonprofit with a local and national reach.
And a good month for the National Center for Farmworker Health means better months — and years — for a vulnerable yet vitally important segment of the population: the people who pick the fruit and vegetables that Americans eat.
Bobbi Ryder, the center’s president and CEO, marked her 25th anniversary at the helm of the organization on Aug. 11. And last week, U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, announced the center was receiving more than $1 million in federal funds.
With the renewed funding, the center in Buda continues its mission of providing training, technical assistance and materials for hundreds of nonprofit health centers that treat migrant farmworkers around the country.
There are more than 700 such health centers in the United States. Loosely knit and federally funded, they often provide the only medical care in rural areas where melon fields, vineyards or orange groves abound, but physicians do not.
The health centers collectively serve about 900,000 farmworkers every year, according to Ryder.
In addition to its work with the community and migrant health centers, the National Center for Farmworker Health is in its fifth year operating a breast cancer prevention program in Hays County.
Many aging Hispanic women in the area had never received breast cancer screenings and did not know how to check themselves for cancer before the implementation of the program, according to information provided by the program. But in the past year alone, the education and outreach program has:
• Reached 2,200 women at Hays County grocery stores, thrift stores and other locations in Hays County;
• Made more than 400 referrals for further care;
• Conducted eight breast cancer screenings through Seton’s mobile mammography unit.
Largely funded by the Komen Austin Foundation, the local program is operated in conjunction with Seton Medical Center Hays, Community Action Inc. and CommuniCare Health Centers in Kyle and San Marcos, as well as through partnerships with local businesses such as Walmart, grocery stores and thrift shops.
What’s more, the farmworker health center has learned that it will receive an additional grant from the state of Texas worth $555,000 over two years. That grant, which begins Sept. 1, will pay for cervical cancer prevention efforts in Hays County.
