Activist of the Year Announced

Congratulations to this year’s award recipient! Rosalinda Guillen was honored with the Jeanette Rankin award at Social Justice Fund’s Immigrant Rights: Fighting for the Future of the Northwest event on October 6, 2006 at Marion Oliver McCaw Hall.

Jeanette Rankin Award

The Jeanette Rankin Award is given to a lifelong activist who has provided extraordinary service to the Social Justice Fund region of Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Washington and Oregon.

After attending the University of Washington, Jeanette Rankin was the first woman to serve in Congress, representing the state of Montana. She was an active member of the women’s suffrage movement, and served as a community organizer, labor activist, and lifelong peace activist. As a pacifist, Jeanette was one of a few Congressional members to vote against the United States’ entrance into World War I and later, World War II. Jeanette’s work helped secure rights for women, children and independent thinkers in the Northwest and across the United States.

Recipient: Rosalinda Guillen

Rosalinda, the oldest of eight, was born in Texas, spent her first decade in Mexico and migrated with her family to Skagit County in Washington State in 1960, where she picked strawberries and other crops starting at the age of ten. As a young mother of two, she would come to follow the migrant path as a farm worker for another eight years in the Pacific Northwest.

Her past work includes Operations Officer for Data Processing operations for Skagit State Bank, Community Organizer for the Rainbow Coalition, lead organizer for the UFW of Washington State in the successful Chateau Ste. Michelle union organizing campaign in the Columbia River Gorge. As a National Vice President of Cesar Chavez’s United Farm Workers of America, AFL-CIO, she managed the union’s political and legislative agenda in California with staff based in Los Angeles, Salinas, Sacramento and Delano. She has also served as a Retreat Coordinator for Positive Futures Network.

Her current work includes Executive Director for Community to Community Development (C2C), a women-led, place based grassroots community non-profit organization – housing the Food Justice Alliance, Mujeres Para un Pueblo Sano, Small Potatoes Gleaning Project, the Women’s Alliance and the Águila del Norte Immigrant Rights Project. To strengthen the Aguila del Norte program C2C has joined the Washington Coalition for Immigration Reform that includes Hate Free Zone, North West Immigrant Rights Project, the Washington Assn. of Churches and other Faith groups and organizations statewide.

She is a member of the Acting King County Food Policy Council, a participant member of the International Food Lab and a member of the Agricultural Justice Project working to envision and pilot successful domestic Fair Trade sustainable food supply chains. Rosalinda also serves on the board of the Center for Social Justice.

Thank you, Rosalinda for your service to our community!