Soon you will be able to purchase Equal Exchange, Fairly Traded Coffee and Chocolate Bars at church and support our efforts at Pine Ridge at the same time. Here's the deal...- You can buy the coffee and 48% of the money from your purchase will go toward purchasing backpacks and school supplies for the children on the Pine Ridge Reservation.
It's a situation where everyone wins and we have an opportunity to make a difference in many ways.
- First, we will be making money to purchase school supplies and making a difference in the lives of children on the reservation.
- We will also be helping the farmers who in developing countries by purchasing Fair Trade coffee.
- And, we will be raising awareness about Fair Trade products.
That's 3 different ways we can make a difference!
Will it cost more? Yes. About $10.00 per pound of regular coffee and about $3.50 per bar of chocolate, but your money will be doing so much good on so many levels and the products are so much better
About Fair Trade
Fair Trade ensures that the farmers who grow the coffee in Third World countries are paid a fair wage for their crops, that they do not have to work in hazardous conditions, and that no child labor is used.
Some things you may not know ... The farmers who grow the coffee we drink are often paid less than it cost them to grow their crop, keeping them in a cycle of poverty.
With chocolate, the story is far worse. "While chocolate is sweet for us, it can be heartbreaking for the hundreds of thousands of child laborers that pick the cocoa that goes into some of our favorite treats. In 2001, the U.S. State Department, the International Labor Organization and others reported child slavery on many cocoa farms in the Ivory Coast, source of 43% of the worlds cocoa. Subsequent research by the
International Institute of Tropical Agriculture revealed some 284,000 children between the ages of 9 and 12 working in hazardous conditions on West African cocoa farms. Of these children, it was reported that some 12,000 child cocoa workers that had participated in the study were likely to have arrived in their
situation as a result of child trafficking". - From The Global Exchange
In the very near future we will have a way of having our favorite treats and putting our money to better use.
Be looking for more information coming soon.
