Immokalee resident Gloria Padilla comes from a big, tight-knit Mexican family that relishes in sharing meals and laughs together.
One of their gatherings, that took place before the pandemic, is captured in a video where Padilla’s brother, Bernabe Martinez Jr. plays the guitar and sings a song with their mother.
COVID-19 has hit Padilla’s family hard--Martinez died from complications of the virus in July.
Padilla’s sister tested positive for COVID-19 and shortly after, so did her mother and brother.
“So when my mom and brother first tested positive, my mother ended up in the hospital but she had different symptoms which, thank God, they were stomach related versus the upper respiratory, and my brother was fine. He had no symptoms whatsoever,” Padilla said.
Martinez was their mother’s caretaker, so after he quarantined and tested negative for COVID-19, Padilla visited them.
“He was an amazing, amazing cook,” Padilla said. “He had made breakfast for us that morning, and he was fine. That Sunday was the last time that I saw him physically, because he did this great thing. Every night he would sing to [the family], he would send us a video of him singing, and then they stopped because he was feeling sick and he ended up in the hospital. That was the end.”
Padilla said Martinez was put on a ventilator and tested positive for COVID. She said doctors told the family her brother’s blood had thickened causing cardiac arrest.
“[Martinez’s death] came out of nowhere, it was center-left field because we were doing everything right,” Padilla said.
Padilla has worked with the Redlands Christian Migrant Association, or RCMA, in Immokalee for nearly 40 years and said she brought all the COVID-19 mitigation protocols and precautions she learned from her job back to her family.
“It was rolling and we felt like we got this,” Padilla said. “So my brother’s death was so unexpected.”
Community Health Fair
Martinez’s complications with the coronavirus were due to an underlying condition. After Padilla and her husband recovered from COVID-19 themselves, she had an idea to bring preventive healthcare to migrant workers in Immokalee.
In the fall, Immokalee becomes home to thousands of migrant workers during the peak harvest season that runs roughly October through May.
Padilla said providing preventive screening to those workers would help them better understand the complications that could arise if they contracted the virus.
"With the farm workers, I was really concerned that they are coming back from up north, they probably have not had any preventative care whatsoever in the past couple of months, and they are coming back to a [COVID-19] hotspot in Immokalee where they are going to be around more people, in households where multiple families live together," Padilla said. "So through the inspiration of my brother, I wanted to find a way to provide preventative screening."
On Dec. 5, the RCMA hosted a community health fair. The Florida Department of Health in Collier County, Healthcare Network of Southwest Florida and Lee Health collaborated to provide flu shots, COVID-19 testing and dental, vision, blood pressure and mental health screenings.
.@healthcareswfl staff dances with one of the smallest patients at the health fair to José Feliciano's "Feliz Navidad." https://t.co/KizTrtwtvR pic.twitter.com/jZ6eLdDYst
— Andrea Perdomo (@am_perdomo) December 5, 2020
More than 100 migrant workers and their families participated.
“I told myself that my brother’s death was not going to be in vain,” Padilla said. “So many families have suffered deaths from COVID-19, but it's due to their underlying conditions and if we can save even a handful of people, even one through educating them on their underlying conditions, then we can save their families from this [grief].”
Bernabe Martinez Jr. is remembered by his loved ones as an amazing cook and performer as well as a loving father, son and brother. He was 58 years old.
