This Go Fund Me is organized by Rosa Saavedra's colleagues at Rural Coalition on behalf of her family. Based in Washington, D.C., Carine has worked closely with Rosa for over 5 years to support rural communities and farmers in North Carolina and Puerto Rico. All funds raised will go to her family.

With deepest sadness, we share the news that our beloved colleague and friend Rosa Saavedra, has departed this life on her eternal journey on May 13, 2025. We are all shocked and saddened, because we cannot imagine this work without her dedication, brilliance, commitment, her phone calls, her laughter, and her deep love for the communities and people she has served for her whole life.

She passed away in Puerto Rico. We request your support and assistance to help her family, including her children Carina and Ernesto, who are traveling to make her arrangements, celebrate her life in Puerto Rico on May 20th, and at a future date in NC.

She founded Compañeras Campesinas to build collective knowledge and strength through cultural and intellectual exchange. She continued this work after she joined Rural Coalition where she has been a fearless champion for farmers and workers. She helped communities understand the power of peer to peer exchange, supporting them in organizing Farm and Food Solidarity Hubs connecting 1800 farmers in 12 communities in Puerto Rico. These hubs focus on assuring farmers receive the service they need and deserve from the US Department of Agriculture.

She was working at the time of her passing to realize a long-awaited dream: to establish a new farm to cultivate and protect traditional seeds and to honor and connect the communities where these seeds were nurtured over generations.

Her colleague Carmen Umpierre of Finca Noa, an agroecological training center in Puerto Rico shared that “I believe Rosa was an angel who came to help us progress from the situation we farmers were in.”

She previously worked with Bread for the World on solutions to hunger.

She loved bringing delegations from these communities to the Annual Farm Aid Concert.

She was a longtime colleague, and beloved friend to all who knew her.

A few weeks ago, we were with her in Red Springs North Carolina at the American Indian Mothers, Inc. Many Tongues, One Voice conference. One speaker shared a thought and Rosa told us, “I need to write that down.” In closing we share as a gift to you her version of those words: “Live by faith, grow in grace, and walk in love.”

Please join us now in surrounding her family with the support and care Rosa has spread across so many lives and communities throughout her extraordinary life.

Rest in Power, our beloved sister.