Equal Exchange

If you have kids in school or even just know any school aged kids you probably get sick of the endless fundraisers.  As an active PTA parent, I know these are annoying but a much needed way for schools to raise money for field trips and other things that are considered "extras" in times of tight school budgets.  While brainstorming how could we make these more purposeful (cause let's face it, a lot of this stuff is overpriced JUNK) I heard that my daughter's yearly fundraiser was going to be FAIR TRADE and it nearly stopped me in my tracks.  I eagerly volunteered to handle the fundraiser since I feel so passionate about fair trade.  The name of the fundraiser they used is Equal Exchange.  Having never heard of them before I did a little research about them first.  Were they for real?  And yes, they are for real.

Working with Equal Exchange was positive.  There was excellent and responsive communication and they have an easy spreadsheet to talley orders and create your order to the company.  The only difficult thing was that the orders do not come sorted by student seller as some fundraising companies do.  This just means planning for time to go through and sort each order and getting some other parents to come help.

I think a great way to increase sales with this fundraiser would be to partner it with education on what Fair Trade is and why it is important.  Not only may that help increase sales but it may introduce people to Fair Trade that have never even heard of it before.

Some of the items available from Equal Exchange.

So, if you are looking for a fundraiser idea for your group, they are a good option to consider. They sell everything from chocolates, coffee and wrapping paper to unique gift items from Ten Thousand Villages.   http://www.equalexchange.coop/equal-exchange-fundraising

More Purposeful Party Ideas

So I promised to share more ideas from my sister's bridal shower, and here they are!

Go purposeful in your attire. How about a cute dress from Mata Traders? 

If you have gift baskets or prizes think purposeful again.  This is not only a good place to direct your resources to support purposeful companies but it is also a great way to spread the word about products most people know little about.  I did a coffee basket with Three Avacados coffee and included their information card and sticker in the basket.  I also had a throw blanket, chick-flick and bar of fair trade chocolate for another.


Again, I would love to hear your ideas! Please share!

Non-Profit Coffee

I've talked about Fair Trade Coffee in a previous post. It is pretty easy to find in stores and online in any form.  I decided to take it a step further and give a non-profit coffee company called Three Avacados a shot.  I am a keurig user and awful at brewing my own coffee so I was a little hesitant because they do not sell k-cups.  That problem was easily solved though with a reusable k-cup that allows you to brew coffee in a keurig (that's next week's review though). 

So what's so great about Three Avacados that I broke away from the easy peasy k-cups?  Well, 100% of their net proceeds go to providing clean water in Uganda, Africa.  Clean water is something I take for granted but it has the power to save lives.  It is so simple but so impactful.  How awesome that a delicious cup of coffee can change a life. And yes, it is delicious, like I would order it even if it didn't provide clean water to people in Uganda-good, as in this one cup per day person  wants another cup cause I just hit the bottom of the mug.  The best way to describe the taste is rich and smooth. 

I ordered a bag of the ground coffee and a Three Avacados travel tumbler.  Shipping with this was free but if you order the coffee alone, shipping is $2.95.  The coffee comes in a 12 oz. bag.  It arrived in just a few days, regular mail from Missouri and they included a couple stickers.  Not only is their coffee DELISH, the travel mug worked great on a recent trip.  I filled it up each day with hotel coffee, rinsed it out and reused the next day and saved a few cups from the landfill.  Their website contains lots of great information about their coffee, their projects and their mission including the story behind their name. 

Thanks Three Avacados for a great cuppa joe and helping me be a Conscientious Consumer.

Fair Trade Coffee

Fair Trade coffee is fortunately much easier to find than Fair Trade chocolate. You can find Fair Trade coffee at Target and BJ’s wholesale or online from Amazon. Green Mountain coffee makes several Fair Trade blends, which are my personal favorites. Vermont Country blend is my favorite of their Fair Trade blends. Again, look for the Fair Trade label as not all of Green Mountain’s coffees carry the label. Newman’s Own also offers a Fair Trade brew. Starbucks claims ethically made coffee on its website but I could not find a Fair Trade seal on their K-cups or bulk coffee sold at Target.

Here is an interesting article about efforts to make it illegal to sell anything other than Fair Trade coffee.

http://articles.latimes.com/2002/jul/03/news/lv-coffee3

While I would love to see no other types of coffee sold, I personally don’t think throwing people in jail for selling coffee is a good use of my tax dollars. I think we can get a lot further by educating consumers to make choices that fit with their own values.
If you have a favorite Fair Trade chocolate or coffee, please share!