Fair Trade Fund
Help People Help Themselves
Every time you purchase products from one of our fair trade partners, CRS receives a generous contribution to the Fair Trade Fund. We then recycle those donations into grants – both on-the-ground with farmers and artisans to improve their organizations, products, and access to markets and here in the U.S. marketplace – to build a fairer and more sustainable trading system.
Current grantees:
Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation: CRS together with our partners SERRV and Ten Thousand Villages contributed $24,900 towards the complete renovation of 6 olive wood workshops in the Holy Land, benefiting 225 workers and their communities. Workshops were transformed from un-safe, un-healthy work spaces to beautiful work spaces with proper ventilation, lighting, and safety equipment. The one-of-a-kind olive wood nativities and mother of pearl crosses are just some of the products these artisans produce and now they are producing them under much better conditions!
- CRS Fair Trade Ambassador Program: Each year up to 30 volunteers are trained by CRS to serve as word-of-mouth marketers for CRS partners and programs. The fund contributes approximately $30,000 a year to train and support these volunteers.
- CRS Carbon Credit Feasibility Study: CRS Fair Trade together with our Latin American program contributed 6,000 to conduct a feasibility study to determine the potential for marketing certified carbon credits to Catholic institutions, businesses, and individuals from our agriculture programs in Guatemala and Nicaragua.
- Sindyanna of Galilee: The fund contributed 5,000 to support the creation of a visitors center in Cana that would create a space for Jewish and Arab women to continue basket weaving classes as well as provide a space for marketing their new wares.
- Nepalese Artisan Workshops: Following the recent earthquakes in Nepal, the CRS Fair Trade Fund contributed $10,500 towards the rebuilding of two artisan workshops that suffered extensive damage: Annapurna Producers’ Jewelry and the Lubhu Weaving Producers.
Former grantees:
Adel Fair Trade is a non-governmental organization that CRS helped establish in Palestine. Its mission includes helping vulnerable women and disadvantaged farmers produce healthy products such as goat cheese and lemonade, while offering a fair price. The Adel project received $100,00o in support over two years and is now a self sufficient fair trade business supporting it’s workers from the money generated from product sales.