“What started off as a bucket list activity for me who just wanted to bring a smile to some children’s faces became something bigger,” says Sergio Garcia of the Christmas 2023 toy drive he held with his partner, Steve Lautenbach.
Garcia and Lautenbach set out to gather a few toys to donate to the Riverside County Office of Education’s Migrant Education Program.
“Steve and I were driving somewhere in Thermal or near the Salton Sea, and we both thought: ‘The children of migrant farm workers probably don’t get very many toys at Christmas.’ I told Steve that I wanted to do a toy drive, and he was gung ho, as he pretty much always is with my crazy ideas.”
Lautenbach thought they might get 50 toys, while Garcia’s guess was 200.
Garcia did a Google search and came across the Migrant Education Program with the Riverside County Office of Education.
Lautenbach, who grew up on a dairy farm south of Indianapolis, says his upbringing gave him a special appreciation for farm workers.
“From my childhood and throughout my young adult life, I experienced the perils of fieldwork,” he says. “Heat, dehydration, physical exhaustion, social isolation and missed after-school activities. Today, traveling along the Highway 86 corridor to and beyond the Salton Sea, there are miles and miles of date and citrus orchards and fields of various vegetables. I have seen many hard-working migrant farm workers harvesting by hand in the searing summer heat the very fruits and vegetables that I select from my local market without breaking a sweat. I am passionate to show my appreciation and create awareness for all that migrant farm workers do for our valley and the entire country.”