School children to Burger King: "pay one penny more!"

Letters to BK from the students of All Saints Catholic School in Sunrise, FL

July 10, 2007 - Below is just a small sampling of dozens of letters sent by primary- and middle-school students of All Saints Catholic School in Sunrise, Florida to Burger King executive Steve Grover, calling on the world's 2nd-largest burger chain to help improve farmworker wages and working conditions.

As the saying goes, "children don't lie." These letters are a reminder of the simple yet compelling logic behind the CIW's Campaign for Fair Food - that the fast-food industry and other large purchasers of tomatoes have the ability, and the responsibility, to help alleviate the very farmworker poverty that they continue to perpetrate and profit from.

Click on each letter in the slideshow to view it in a separate window.

An excerpt from a letter sent to us by the children's instructor, Rachel Ramjattan:

"These letters came about as a result of my association with Interfaith Action and the CIW over the last 3 years. As a social justice coordinator working for Catholic Charities, I had the privilege of taking parishioners from the Archdiocese of Miami to Immokalee for immersion experiences as part of our JustFaith formation program. The experiences were designed to show Catholic Social Teaching in action. They transformed all those who visited and helped people to understand that the life and dignity of every human being is more important than corporate profits.

In August of 2006, I was hired to teach Technology at All Saints Catholic School in Sunrise, FL. I was eager to capture the enthusiasm of my young students, engage them in thinking about 'conscious living' and teach them the skills needed to become changemakers. K-8 students are very interested in fast food and I have a great love for the CIW. I designed this lesson plan to help them understand how their food gets from crop to table, how the process affects the people who participate, how we can use our purchasing power to work for social change and how brave farm workers have risked their jobs and personal safety to work for human rights. Students had to use the Internet to visit the CIW online, take a virtual tour of Immokalee and then write a letter to Burger King demanding better treatment for farmworkers. The victory over McDonalds came in the midst of my lesson so students had proof that community organizing makes change happen.

This experience has awakened a passion for justice in many of my students. It fit perfectly into my theme for the year: 'By ourselves, we cannot do much. Together, we can change the world.'"