Law Students Learn from Linda Lee and Mural Progress Continues

March 13th-16th, students from Florida State University Law School ventured from Tallahassee to Apopka to dedicate part of their spring break to learning about the life and struggles of farmworkers. On their first day in Apopka, the students were taken on a toxic tour of Lake Apopka to learn about the environmental racism and injustice that has plagued the community for decades. At the end of the tour, the students even got a chance to meet Linda Lee, a community activist and former Lake Apopka farmworker whose powerful memories provide a vivid picture of what life was like on the Lake Apopka farms.

The students had a busy weekend of working in local plant nurseries, and assisting the Farmworker Association with community outreach over the 2020 Census and other community issues. The students were especially saddened to see some of the dilapidated houses that some of the community members live in. The group of students was able to reconvene with Linda in the Apopka Campesinxs Garden to do some more hands-on work. The Campesinxs Garden is meant to provide community members like Linda Lee with access to land, so that knowledge of plants and farming that has passed through generations of farmworkers can be remembered in the present.

While Linda continues to teach students and community members about the history of Lake Apopka, the mural project is still underway at the Farmworker Association! Although the covid-19 precautions have caused a bit of a slow down in the process, Linda and her boys continue to sketch every day, and they have big ideas for the mural!

Work for the mural continues on, and we hope that once public health issues have calmed down we will be able to return to the community art project that is meant to memorialize the hardworking people of Apopka!