Many of us around the country are braving cold winter weather, and hot Fair Trade cocoa, tea and coffee are just the thing to warm bodies and raise spirits. Even where the weather is frequently warm, as in Florida, people come together to enjoy Fair Trade coffee and build community. Last month, that’s just what Mike Buckler, Director of Youth and Young Adult Ministry at Prince of Peace in Orlando did alongside a team of adult volunteers. As part of a growing tradition, the group hosted the 3rd annual CRS Fair Trade Coffeehouse and concert. Mike shares his reflections about his “cafe”,

“Over 1,000 people learned in two day’s time about CRS, their partner, Cafe Campesino Coffee, the Fair Trade process, and why Catholics should support Fair Trade. [The group also heard about] the overarching structure of our Church’s social teaching and our Advent call to prepare the way of the Lord by working for justice in our world. We sold approximately $2,000 worth of Work of Human Hands crafts and Divine chocolate and 175 bags of Cafe Campesino coffee. The cafe portion of the night had over 150 people present at one time, with probably double that coming and going, and another 200+ people shopped after all Masses the next day. The cafe included the largest number of speakers we have ever had (and I will say the most engaging!), including Simone Blanchard from CRS Southeast, Michelle Fischer our Diocesan Director of Youth and Young Adult Ministry, Stephanie Bosse our Diocesan CRS Programs Coordinator, musician Matt Maher, and national youth speaker Paul George. As a result of our Fair Trade cafe and sale, our pastor and parishioners are more excited about Fair Trade, Catholic Social Teaching, and youth ministry. This was a great opportunity for our parish to come together as community and we had wonderful volunteers from our Catholic Women’s group to our Knights of Columbus group to our teens and adult leaders. I think every parish should try a CRS Fair Trade coffeehouse.”

Here are students in sunny California using CRS Fair Trade coffeehouse
resources to do a skit for the community.

Tags: cafe campesino, Chocolate, Coffee, fair trade, florida, orlando

This entry was posted on Friday, January 23rd, 2009 at 3:36 pm and is filed under Events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.