Some 600 middle school, high school and college students from across California are spending Cesar Chavez’s birthday on Thursday performing a “National Day of Service” by cleaning and fixing up the grounds at the National Chavez Center that include his grave site and Visitors Center in the Tehachapi Mountain hamlet of Keene southeast of Bakersfield.

Students are traveling to Keene for the day from as far away as Oakland, Fresno and the Los Angeles area as well as from Bakersfield and Shafter. They will labor on service projects, including cleaning up the land, pulling weeds, planting gardens and painting. Their day will consist of two hours of volunteer work, a free lunch and a tour of the Visitors Center and Memorial Gardens that host Chavez’s gravesite.

The National Chavez Center is the 187-acre facility at Keene where Chavez lived and worked the last 22 years of his life after moving the farm worker movement headquarters there from Delano in 1971. It also became his personal refuge and spiritual harbor. It is set amid picturesque volcanic peaks, oak woodlands, creeks and rock outcrops. It was where Chavez asked to be laid to rest after his passing, which occurred in April 1993. On March 31, Chavez moved his family to the dusty Central Valley grape growing capital of Delano and began building the United Farm Workers of America.

------------------------------- SOURCE Monica Parra - ufw.org