FLAP's Work
Healthcare Access
FLAP partners with healthcare providers to expand access to high-quality medical care, occupational safety education, and free or low-cost health resources for low-wage workers.
Guided by the belief that food is a fundamental human right rather than a tool for control, FLAP advocates for nutrition as a primary defense against chronic illness. Access to healthy food improves health outcomes, addresses nutritional gaps, and advances equity.
Low-wage workers in the food supply chain, greenhouse, landscaping, nursery, and snow removal industries are facing severe ongoing trauma due to deportations, detentions, and family separations. In response to the rising mental health crisis caused by this systemic stress, FLAP directly connects impacted families with trusted, culturally competent mental health providers.
This trauma also deeply impacts the FLAP team -both from witnessing the distress of the people they serve and because FLAP proudly hires from the very communities it supports. To address vicarious trauma and personal hardship, FLAP hosts healing circles and wellness retreats in partnership with organizations like “Illinois Unidos”. These spaces allow staff to process mental health challenges, foster collective healing, and build long-term resilience.
FLAP’s rapid-response model was demonstrated during the COVID-19 pandemic, during which FLAP distributed 2,987,909 pieces of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)—including 1,095,263 units directly to low-wage farmworkers and 25,677 units to low-wage immigrant children and youth. In recognition of these life-saving public health efforts, Governor JB Pritzker and the Illinois Department of Public Health publicly honored FLAP’s Bilingual Chief Executive Officer, Alexandra Sossa, as an Illinois COVID-19 Ambassador.