As we come into the holiday season and you need hostess gifts, friend and family gifts, please remember the Fair Trade coffee, tea, chocolate and olive oil we have available on Fellowship Sundays and every day through the Condit Honor Basket.

 

Last Halloween Americans probably spent over a billion dollars on millions of pounds of chocolate. Where does it all come from? The following paragraphs from a blog by Sara Fiore of our Fair Trade provider Equal Exchange tell the story:

“Thousands of other children are trafficked from Mali and Burkina Faso and sold to cacao farmers in the Ivory Coast. These adolescents, desperate for work to help support their families, are deceived by traffickers who promise them good jobs. Once over the border, far from home and their own languages, these children are also forced to work long days of dangerous labor with no access to education, proper nutrition or health care. . . . “

“Despite this being a well-documented, ongoing crisis, we have seen little actual progress where it is needed most. And it is this cacao, harvested by exploited children, that often ends up in mainstream chocolate.

 

“The Equal Exchange supply chain is different: we work with small farmer co-operatives in Peru, Panama, Ecuador and the Dominican Republic. We have a close working relationship with our farmer partners and visit their co-ops often – we know them, and they know us. We’re invested in the well-being and success of the individuals, communities and small businesses behind our chocolate.

“We’re working to promote a system that eliminates the desperation that causes some farmers to use unpaid laborers. In our system, there are no middlemen or brokers, and our producer partners receive above-market prices for their crops and other Fair Trade benefits. Additionally, nonprofit, independent certifying organizations monitor these cacao farms to verify that they follow fair labor standards. In every sweet square of our chocolate, there is integrity, honesty and pride.”

This blog illustrates just why the Condit Adult Class chose to sell Fair Trade products to raise money for the church’s Helping Hands Fund, a Fund designed to step to the plate when residents of our church or community need help. We think it is important to know where our food comes from and to lend our support to programs that try to make things better for our food suppliers here at home and around the world.

If you have special requests or want to be sure we will have the quantity on hand you will need please talk to any Adult Class member or email me at jenkav@hotmail.com.