Rural Opportunities, Inc. (ROI)
Stuart J. Mitchell, President/CEO
Velma Smith, Director, New York Division
John Premo, Deputy for Field Operations
Chris Vieira, Financial Resource Developer
339 East Ave., Suite 401
Rochester, N.Y. 14604
(716) 546-6325
(716) 546-7337 fax

Organized in 1969 to advocate for the rights of migrant farmworkers and the rural poor, ROI has evolved over the ensuing three decades into a major, multiple-program organization that still advocates but also provides employment training, housing, education and economic development services (mostly funded by federal programs) for farm workers and their families in six states. It is an effective program that builds empowerment and self-reliance and stands as a national model of its type.

In a particularly impressive demonstration that an older program need not become set in tradition, it is in the process of reinventing itself in a more holistic fashion that, by focusing its efforts on "Milestones to Success," in which each participant family sets specific personal goals and tasks to meet them in an Individual Family Development Plan, a contract to which both the family and the organization must agree. This approach changes the way in which the program evaluates its success from mere numbers to actual outcomes in terms of changes in its clients' lives.

As a community-based organization with 51 percent of its board representing low-income individuals and farm workers, ROI learns from the people it serves, and this approach clearly pays off in results. It's estimated that ROI has contact with 20,000 individuals per year in New York, Ohio, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, where it has active field offices, as well as Michigan and Indiana, where it provides technical assistance. It also plans to open a field office in Puerto Rico this year.

As outlined in its directory of services, ROI's activities break out in several related areas, all serving farm workers and rural poor: