Supporting Fair Trade

Hold a Fair Trade Day at your Church
Celebrate Fair Trade with a fiesta - big or small. Give thanks for trade that provides the producers with a just price for their labor. Serve Fair Trade refreshments, sample and sell Fair Trade coffee, chocolate, produce and crafts, play music, do skits.

Remember that you can bring fair trade principles home by directly purchasing from local farmers, so think about ways to highlight locally-grown produce where the farmer was paid a fair price.

• Download a sample Press Release and customize it for yourself
• Order Fair Trade coffee, tea, chocolate and other products from Equal Exchange
• Order Fair Trade clothes, crafts and household items from the Joining Hands Against Hunger Peruvian Partnership
• Play UNFAIR games or sports to illustrate how global trade is rigged by unfair trade rules that benefit more powerful players
• Download a sign-up sheet for volunteers to modify for your event
• See the Just Trade Resources page for other activity ideas and resources

Encourage your grocery store
Adopt-A-Supermarket: Make Where You Shop a Fair Trade Hot Spot

Ask the manager at your local food stores to carry fair trade goods. Besides coffee and tea, it is now possible to buy:

• fair trade bananas, pineapples and mangoes
• fair trade rice
• fair trade chocolate
• fair trade juices
• and other everyday household items

Often these commodities are not found in your neighborhood store, usually based on the perception that there is a lack of demand. Yes, fair trade commodities can cost more – but that is the point! Those of us who can afford to do so should spend that little bit more to put more food on the table for the communities and small farmers who are producing these fair trade products. So, express consumer demand for fair trade products every chance you get.

Go to Co-op America for everything you need to Adopt-A-Supermarket

Use Fair Trade coffees and teas
A warm pot of coffee is often the centerpiece of fellowship hour and other gatherings. As the second most heavily traded commodity in the world after oil, coffee is a direct link between our community and farming communities in Latin America, Africa and Asia.

Yet the small farmers who grow our coffee often struggle just to make a simple living. Most live in rural communities in some of the poorest countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia. Isolated from markets, they are forced to accept low prices, which have dropped to historic lows due to a glut of producers entering the market. Without affordable credit, they become trapped in cycle of debt. Many lack access to adequate housing, healthcare and education.

But there is an alternative.The Presbyterian Coffee Project www.pcusa.org/coffee provides a bridge between these communities and our own. By paying a fair price, working with democratic cooperatives, offering affordable credit and supporting sustainable agriculture, our partner Equal Exchange helps farmers to build better lives for themselves and their families.

By serving Equal Exchange fairly traded coffee at your place of worship, you can share fellowship with our neighbors in coffee-growing countries, making a difference in their lives while enjoying a delicious cup of coffee. Through the program, farmers earn a fair price for their products, receive affordable credit, and gain a long-term trading partner that they can trust. By pooling their resources in democratic cooperatives, farmers are able to invest in training, health care, and agricultural improvements in their communities. Every cup you serve is a cup of justice.

The Presbyterian Coffee Project is another way to support Just Trade. Already, more than 1,900 congregations are serving and/or selling Equal Exchange's Fair Trade coffee, tea and cocoa. Go...

Buy Fair Trade (and Sweat-Free) Products

Download a great list of Fair Trade Gifting Resources

Shop with a Conscience for SweatFree products on the SweatshopWatch Web site at http://www.sweatshopwatch.org/index.php?s=59

Download and share the "Shop with a Conscience" Flier with friends and family

Sweat-Free T www.pcusa.org/sweatfree educates about sweatshops and enables you to buy declared sweat-free products. This is also a part of Just Trade, particularly when items are purchased from overseas. Fair trade means fair wages, and this is the intent behind Sweat-Free T: that our purchases translate into livable wages for producers. Go...

For things besides T-shirts, the Clean Clothes Connection www.cleanclothesconnection.org can help you find a variety of Sweat-Free products!

A Greater Gift, a nonprofit program of SERRV International, is dedicated to alleviating poverty through trade and development. The organization markets handcrafts and foods made by artisans and farmers in 34 countries, and partners with hundreds of churches throughout the United States that sell fair trade products in their own communities. For more information about A Greater Gift's products and partnerships, visit www.agreatergift.org or call (888) 243-4423.

Peruvian Fair Trade through Joining Hands Against Hunger
While the site is still under construction, you can peruse their handsome Web site at www.fairtradeperu.com/page2english.htm. The Virtual Fair Trade Bridge Catalogue of the Peru Joining Hands Against Hunger Fair Trade Initiative, where you can buy Fair Trade Peruvian crafts from a cooperative of artisans, is ready for business.

For more information on the Presbyterian Hunger Program's Joining Hands Against Hunger see www.pcusa.org/hunger/jhah