From the Crops to the Classroom
Story by Aja Goare
Photography by Heather Daenitz
As a young child living in a small home in Mexico City, Esteban Garcia recalls using sun-warmed water from a 5-gallon bucket to bathe. “There were three of us kids and my mom had one for each of us,” he shares. “We grew up in poverty.”
When the family moved to the U.S. in 2000, they found work as pickers in the fields of Santa Maria. Esteban remembers using his small hands to help his family collect strawberries and other seasonal produce starting each morning at 5am. “My family has done agricultural work as long as I can remember,” Esteban says. “My grandparents grew corn in Mexico and would make tortillas with it, but also used the husks to make beds and supplies.”
The work was laborious but for Esteban, it was familiar and, in some ways, comfortable. He remembers picking fruit after graduating high school when his uncle told him he needed to go do something bigger with the opportunity he was afforded. But college is expensive and without a roadmap drawn for him by a previous relative, the idea of pursuing a degree was daunting. He took a leap of faith and enrolled in Fresno State University’s viticulture program, working long hours in addition to his coursework to fund his education.
In 2019, Esteban’s field manager told him about a scholarship for farm workers and encouraged him to apply. “I got it three years in a row,” he says. The collective $13,000 he received made it possible for this father of two to attend university — the first in his family to do so. “One day I want to be a vice president or director of operations for a winery,” he explains.
Esteban is one of 57 recipients of this scholarship, which is orchestrated by an Atascadero-based organization called the Vineyard Team, in partnership with Must! Charities. Since it began in 2015, the scholarship has been funded by 80 unique donors that include local wineries like Booker Vineyard. The fund was renamed the Juan Nevarez Memorial Scholarship in 2019 in honor of a beloved field team manager and vineyard owner who died of COVD-19. For Booker Head Winemaker Eric Jensen, supporting the fund is a way to honor a friend. “Juan was such a good guy,” Eric reflects. “We were just shattered when we found out he passed.”
In contributing to the scholarship fund, Booker and other donors enable farm workers and their children to access a path to higher education that has long been unreachable. Eric knows from personal discussions with members of his field team how impossible the idea of attending college can seem to DREAMers and migrant workers. “You’d think it would be an easy pitch but it’s not because of fear and lack of confidence,” says Eric, who is actively working to train and introduce some of the migrant workers to the tasting room. “There’s a lot more money to be made in [the tasting room] because of tips. You’d think of course people would take a promotion if it was offered to them, but [pickers] just want to work quietly, keep their heads down.”
The effort at Booker to promote field crews to the tasting room includes paying for English language classes at Cuesta College, which also involves a cash incentive. So far, Eric says two women have initiated this process by earning ESL certificates. When it comes to accepting new opportunities, Eric, like Vineyard Team Executive Director Beth Vukmanic, knows that the mental support is just as important as the financial support for field workers and their children. “The story you hear is that people come here to create a better life for themselves and their children,” says Beth. “They work these long hours doing hard labor that somebody has to do. The scholarship is a way to pay them back.”
According to Beth, over $210,000 have been awarded so far and 98 percent of scholarship recipients are first generation college students just like Esteban. “I’m so grateful for this scholarship. I don’t know if school would’ve been possible without it,” says Esteban. “When I talk to my mom about my classes, she says all the hardships were worth it.”
At the dinner event when he was awarded his most recent scholarship, Esteban and his father saw a photo of Juan on one of the tables. Esteban’s father recognized the man as someone he’d worked with in the fields. “He told me he was good to his workers and took care of people,” shares Esteban. “My dad isn’t really big on emotions, but he smiled at this so I know it meant a lot to him. And it means a lot to me to receive this scholarship in his honor. One day, I want to donate to this fund to help others like me.”
