Press Conference: Black community fundraiser shut out of Maker Faire

Uhuru Movement urges Maker Faire organizers to include Uhuru Foods at San Mateo event

On Friday afternoon, May 22, 2009, Uhuru Foods was notified by Nancy Davis of Ovations Food Service that Ovations was unilaterally cancelling Uhuru Foods’ contract to have a food booth at Maker Faire. She refused to give any reason. The Maker Faire takes place at the San Mateo Event Center on May 30 and 31.

Uhuru Foods is a volunteer fundraiser of the Uhuru Movement that raises urgently needed funds for important programs of the black community. The programs include the African Village Survival Initiative (AVSI), a collective response from the African community to the economic crisis facing black communities worldwide. The fundraiser also supports the All-African People’s Development and Empowerment Project, as well as the African People’s Education and Defense Fund, which is working to overturn the disparities faced by black communities in education, health, health care and economic development.

Coordinator of Uhuru Foods, Maureen Wagener states: “We believe that excluding Uhuru Food runs counter to the mission of the Maker Faire. It ensures that the festival is an exclusive enterprise that does not include the voice, perspective and struggle of the African working class. They are choosing to exclude African led programs for true sustainability and justice that African people are leading through the Uhuru Movement.”

She continues, “In these critical times when the African community already faces short life expectancies, high infant mortality rates, untenable poverty and police brutality, murders and imprisonment almost daily, the crisis is deepening for African people. We believe that attendees to the Maker Faire want to support African people’s solutions to these problems. Those attendees and our volunteers are being denied this opportunity.”

Uhuru Foods is launching a campaign to reverse the cancellation of the fundraiser and asking the community and Maker Faire to support the programs of the Uhuru Movement.

For more info, contact 510-851-4492, Oakland@uhurufoods.org, go to www.uhurufoods.org.