The Harvest of Hope Foundation is a public, non-profit agency serving the migrant farm worker population of the United States. The center was chartered in the State of New York in 1997 and has 501(c)3 tax exempt status with the IRS. The Foundation is governed by a Board of Directors who subscribe to the mission and values of the Harvest of Hope Foundation.
Thanks to an inheritance from his grandmother, Philip Kellerman established the Harvest of Hope Foundation in 1997 as a result of responding to calls from migrant farm workers and families via the National Migrant Education Hotline. The Foundation was developed to provide emergency and educational financial help, often unavailable at the federal, state and local level, to migrant farm workers and families around the country.
Mr. Kellerman has been in migrant education since 1989 when he was employed with the ESCORT Migrant Education Program, based at the New York State University College at Oneonta. For 16 years, from 1995 to 2011, Mr. Kellerman responded to tens of thousands of calls from migrant farmworrkers and families to the National Hotline. He retired from ESCORT in April of 2011 to focus full-time on the Harvest of Hope Foundation. Over the years he has spoken to numerous civic, church and student groups on the work of the Foundation, migrant farm worker issues and immigration.
For his advocacy of migrant farm workers, in May of 2011, Mr. Kellerman was honored with the co-presidents award at the Sunshine State TESOL (Teachers of English of Other Languages) Conference. In September, 2003, Mr. Kellerman and the Harvest of Hope Foundation received an award from the Title I Migrant Education Program of the Florida Department of Education in "honor of outstanding contributions to the education of Florida's migrant children."
Mr. Romero began his dedicated involvement with the foundation in 2005 by volunteering his talented digital art design and website programming services to help support migrant farm workers and further the mission of the Harvest of Hope Foundation.
Motivated to expand the foundation's internet presence and digital outreach, Tom is always adapting and refining our internet presence which now includes social media awareness outreach to thousands of donors and supporters nationwide. Consistent and reliable, Tom offers day to day support with various functional everyday operations within the foundation. His duties also include promotional strategies; partnered network coordination; team building, marketing strategies; fund raising strategies; enhancing donor outreach; help generate awareness about our cause; provide print/web graphic designs; and serves as the Foundation's liaison.
Tom is native Floridian, holds an A.A. in Business Management and A.S. in Graphic Design Technologies from Santa Fe College.
Ed Kellerman is the communications director for the Foundation. Holding a doctorate of education in educational leadership from the University of Florida, Ed is a senior lecturer in the Dial Center for Written and Oral Communication in UF's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. His specialties include teaching Organizational Communication and Leadership and Intercultural Communication. He and Phil Kellerman team teach a Communications for Non Profit Leadership and Management using the Harvest of Hope Foundation as a service learning model for students. Ed also serves as the Director for the Center for Intercultural Teaching, Learning, and Service (www.citls.com).
Mrs. Sevayega was born the child of Hispanic migrant farmworkers in Texas, and thus has lived the migrant experience in full. She overcame many moves and disruptions to her education as a youth, including failing a high school grade due to working in the fields, yet obtained her doctorate. She is currently an Associate in Higher Education/Teacher Education in the New York State Education Department. For thirteen years, Sevayega has been involved in a service learning project at the State University of New York at Oneonta, where she shares her migrant experiences with students preparing to be teachers and who organize activities to raise funds for the Harvest of Hope Foundation.[9]
Working in various areas of public relations since he was 16, Digital Greg chose public relations as his major at the University of Florida. During his senior year, while working toward his bachelor's degree, Digital Greg was asked by Ed Kellerman to join the Harvest of Hope Foundation as a public relations intern. The internship which started in January of 2009, lead to his promotion as the inundations public relations specialist.
Prior to working for the Harvest of Hope Foundation, he promoted raves in Broward County for the Hazmat Crew and Lexicon Productions. He also was the special events leader for over three years while working for the City of Plantation. While working for the city, he helped plan an average of 18 events per year.