Three Key Ways to Celebrate Fair Trade in October
The folks at TransFair USA, who organize Fair Trade month each October, have taken as their theme this year: 31 days, 31 ways! We agree there are many ways to celebrate and promote the power of Fair Trade to bring about economic justice. We thought we would break down our suggestions into a few key activities you could do in October to set the stage for a whole fall season full of Fair Trade. 1) Work of Human Hands sales are fun holiday events that involve your whole parish community and help artisans around the world. October is the time to organize Your Work of Human Hands Christmas sale. Our free consignment planning kit gives you step-by-step help. Your community will enjoy solidarity shopping for the Christmas season! 2) Commit to Raising Money Right with Fair Trade chocolate at your school and within your youth or campus ministry. Yummy treats help your group fundraise for important projects and support farmers in Africa and Latin America. 3) Serve coffee that serves others! With temperatures dropping, October is the perfect time to convert your parish or school to Fair Trade coffee. Our network of more than a dozen fully committed companies are small, often-family owned, businesses in your region. Think globally and act locally by supporting these coffee companies. When you do, our partners make a contribution to the Fair Trade Fund to help CRS build a fair and sustainable global marketplace. Of course, Fair Traders are creative folks, so come up with your own ideas too. Let us know what you are up to on this blog or on our Facebook fan page!
These ideas are really good ways to contribute to Fair Trade. I like the fact that you can do a lot of these options year-round, not just during Fair Trade month, and everyone can participate! I’ve noticed that a lot of people in the Fair Trade movement are writing ways to get involved, like Handmade Expressions and Jackie DeCarlo.
Here are links to the blogs:
Handmade Expressions: http://www.handmadeexpressions.net/blogs/fair-trade
Jackie DeCarlo:
http://www.jacqdecarlo.com/
Hi Courtney, Thanks for your enthusiasm and your shout out about my personal blog. I certainly also admire the work of Handmade Expressions and am delighted your company is a leader in the Fair Trade Futures conference in Boston next September.
This CRS site has a blog roll of other great organizations who write about Fair Trade. Consumers certainly have lots of options for learning and then acting for economic justice.
Jackie