Laura Lecour with RMM: Passing One Family’s American Dream to Another

About 25 years ago, Laura Lecour followed some vague directions to reach the migrant farmworker camps. “Someone told me: just take that dirt road, keep driving, and eventually you’ll see some homes over there,” recalls Lecour, whose work as a tutor and advocate for migrant families led her to RMM, where she has been Executive Director for sixteen years.

Laura is Cuban on her father’s side and Puerto Rican on her mother’s side. “My parents came from such poverty. They survived the Depression; they had nothing. I think their dream when they arrived in this country was basically education, good jobs, the ability to support a family, live comfortably, and have food.”

When she started working with migrant families, she would visit their homes to help with schoolwork. The living conditions were terrible. Laura recalls that “the sanitary facilities were nowhere near decent. And the rooms were small. The houses had been built when only men came, and now there were men, women, and children. Most of the time, when I left the camps, say on a Friday night, everyone was coming back, covered in dirt and green and exhausted. The mothers were drained, and they still had to cook and do everything. Walking with my books clutched to my chest, I realized that I had left behind that kind of poverty and hard, sweaty labor.”

According to Lecour, she was able to escape poverty through education. And from there, she says, her mission was born—she wanted to help more children. “Because the only thing I needed when I was a student was for a teacher to look me in the eye and tell me that I had what it took to succeed, that I was intelligent, and that my opinion mattered. Something so small nurtured that little seed of desire I had. So that’s what I wanted to do: give that vision to children, tell them: your voice matters, your dreams matter. I had to give them that recognition—that they had something to offer just as valuable as anyone else.”

The Work and the Recognitions

Under Laura’s leadership as General Manager, RMM has expanded from one building in Poughkeepsie to five Rural Worker Education Centers across the state. Laura no longer works directly with migrant families but in RMM’s office, writing grant proposals for the programs.

In March 2024, RMM announced the receipt of $1 million from the Yield Giving Open Call and MacKenzie Scott’s foundation. This donation recognizes RMM’s 40 years of work in building a network of partnerships advocating for communities that are “isolated, marginalized, disenfranchised, and resource-deprived,” as Lecour stated in the press release announcing the grant.

Additionally, in June 2024, La Voz magazine’s audience nominated Laura for the publication’s 20th-anniversary recognition, an award she won alongside only four other individuals. The award honors the tremendous community work she has accomplished.

RMM’s three main programs are called “Accompaniment,” “Popular Education,” and “Youth Empowerment.” These programs empower rural workers and their children to stand up against labor abuses and navigate a system that often overlooks them.

Laura reflects that the programs “are absolutely first-class because we focus on empowerment, and that means helping these children find their own voice. For example, many programs say, ‘we give them a voice’—well, I don’t see it that way. I mean, we don’t give them anything; they already have everything they need within them. We provide the opportunity for them to develop that and to know that their voice matters, that their perspective counts.”

For more information about Rural Migrant Ministry, visit their website: ruralmigrantministry.org/our-work.