Harvest of Hope Fest offers help for migrant workers

By DAVID CUMMING, Alligator Contributing Writer

A half-mile west of the Devil’s Millhopper, Ed Kellerman stood in his living room crammed with electric guitars, amplifiers and drums, glued to his TV screen with his son, Dillon, watching replays of his son’s basketball game.

“They ended up losing to their rival team,” Ed said. “But what matters is that they stuck it out until the end.”

Ed, a UF professor and communications director of the Harvest of Hope Foundation in Gainesville, moved to his dining room table, which was surrounded by hand-painted Buddhist artwork on all four walls. On the floor, hundreds of Harvest of Hope Fest posters lay strung together, awaiting their destination: stapled to wooden street posts.

He opened his laptop displaying a recent set list change for the Hope Fest on March 6-8 at St. Johns Fairgrounds in St. Augustine.

Twirling a yellow guitar pick between his fingers, Ed, 56, explained how Hope Fest is a recovery effort, a taking-off point and a personification of the folk music dream.

Ed recalled his days in New York, when the folk movement was coming into light more than 40 years ago.

On one outstanding night in Greenwich Village, there was Bob Dylan playing over at the Troubadour and Joni Mitchell singing over at Café Noir — they were all young; they were all idealistic. They all joined hands and worked on what they dreamed as a universal community.

This community, he said, is the philosophy behind a grassroots production such as Hope Fest. And after years of benefit shows by punk rockers Against Me! and other friends, the foundation stays afloat with more than $750,000 given as aid to migrant families for medical and general expenses.

“Every time we run out of money, we never despair,” he said. “Something always happens.”

The Struggle

Eventually every migrant worker makes his or her way out, Ed said.

Take 76-year-old Willie Green, a former Ocala migrant farmer turned blues guitarist who will play a set on Saturday afternoon.

But Green’s story came with the territory.

In the ‘40s, the city of Archer was filled with black farmers, Ed said. The ‘70s brought a large Hispanic farming population from Mexico and other countries. Since then, migrant workers struggle to find work, pay their bills and feed their children.

Enter Ed and his brother, Phil Kellerman, 53, who began the Harvest of Hope Foundation as a toll-free hotline for migrants to call for financial help in 1995. That year, their grandmother, Helen Zand, a long-time advocate for the poor, passed away. They took $60,000 worth of the inheritance and started the foundation.

They say they give a hand, and not a handout, Ed said.

“They have to prove that they can help themselves and that they’ve explored other avenues,” Ed said.

But their endowment plummeted after the 2004 hurricane season. There was no work to follow for migrants in central Florida and the Panhandle, but Phil still received hotline calls from workers with transportation issues and utility payments.

“I’ve had a migrant woman cry on the phone when we help them out for keeping their lights on,” said Phil, president of the foundation.

Despite financial uncertainty, they couldn’t give up, Phil said.

“What can you do when they call up for funds? Are we going to sit there saying, ‘No, we’re saving money for a rainy day’? No, because a rainy day happens every day.”

Two years ago, Against Me! played at Common Grounds and went on to play in Georgia, Illinois and Arkansas — selling out shows and giving set money to the cause.

“Migrant farm working is something I’d always been aware of, and we wanted to do something that was active and positive,” said Tom Gabel, lead singer of Against Me!.

Gabel, now a St. Augustine local, and the band will headline the Hope Fest Saturday night. The festival expects to attract more than 15,000 people over the weekend.

“It’s amazing it’s grown the way it has,” Gabel said. “We’re just another band on the bill and happy to be a part of it.”