MAITLAND, Fla. – The Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association presented its Distinguished Service Award to Barbara Mainster, executive director of the Redlands Christian Migrant Association.
The award, announced on Sept. 24 during the association’s annual convention, recognizes individuals in Florida agriculture whose life work has made an indelible mark on those around them and who have made a significant difference for the industry.
“You couldn’t call her a farmer in the conventional sense, yet Barbara Mainster raises Florida’s most precious crop of all: its children,” said FFVA Chairman Alan Temple in presenting Mainster with the award.
The daughter of German immigrant dairy farmers, Mainster earned a bachelor’s degree in social sciences from Michigan State University and studied for a master’s in anthropology at Cornell. Her life’s direction became clear when she spent time in Peru as a Peace Corps volunteer running a preschool.
After working in several Head Start programs in New York, Mainster moved to South Florida where she met Wendell Rollason, director of RCMA. The organization, founded by Mennonites, at that time operated three child care centers for farmworkers’ children. She was hired as its education coordinator in 1972.
In 1988, Mainster took on the executive director position. Today, RCMA operates in 21 Florida counties. It has 69 child care centers, three charter schools, five after-school programs and 28 day care homes. It has grown to be Florida’s largest non-profit child care provider.
What is unique about RCMA, Temple said, is that “it doesn’t choose sides between the farmworker and the farm owner. Instead, RCMA brings them together in the common cause of children. Many of RCMA’s most generous donors are agricultural interests, including FFVA and many of its members.
“Barbara makes sure that all of RCMA’s 1,600 employees remember that parents are the most important influences in their children’s lives,” Temple added. “No matter how little formal education they have received, parents can still inspire their children, support their educations and advocate in the children’s best interest.”
The Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association is a full-service organization serving Florida’s grower-shipper community for more than 70 years. FFVA represents a broad range of crops: vegetables, citrus, tropical fruit, berries, sod, sugar cane, tree crops and more. Its mission is to enhance the business and competitive environment for producing and marketing fruits, vegetables and other crops. You can follow FFVA on Facebook and Twitter.
Source: Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association
