Dolores Huerta is an American labor leader and civil rights activist who, with Cesar Chavez, is a co-founder of the National Farmworkers Association, which later became the United Farm Workers (UFW). Huerta helped organize the Delano grape strike in 1965. Huerta is the originator of the phrase, "Sí, se puede". As a role model to many in the Latino community, Huerta is the subject of many corridos (Mexican or Mexican-American ballads) and murals. In California, April 10 is Dolores Huerta day. It is also her birthday.

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Huerta is president of the Dolores Huerta Foundation, which she founded in 2002. It is a 501(c)(3) "community benefit organization that organizes at the grassroots level, engaging and developing natural leaders. DHF creates leadership opportunities for community organizing, leadership development, civic engagement, and policy advocacy in the following priority areas: health & environment, education & youth development, and economic development."

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The foundation first got started when Huerta received the $100,000 Puffin/Nation Prize for Creative Citizenship, which she then used to create the DHF. Her youngest daughter, Camila Chavez, is the Executive Director at the foundation and “now leads a staff of over 20 organizing, communications, and administrative staff and interns who conduct programs.”

 

The primary purpose of the foundation is to weave in movements such as “women’s rights, LGBTQ rights, immigrant rights, labor rights, and civil rights” into an individual thread. They believe that all of these issues are universal human rights issues and, therefore, through the combination of engagement, programs, and volunteers, they try to raise awareness for such issues and encourage others also to be activists.

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For more information, see doloreshuerta.org