fair trade & the church

our church is wanting to get into providing fair trade coffee for our various classes and gatherings as a lead in to more social justice issues. do any of you friends have any experiences switching over to something like this? i know the uk is taking initiatives.

as it stands now, we are thinking of doing this as an ongoing youth funraiser.  not sure how that works philosophically for a change of habit, as people will only buy more expensive coffee to benefit the youth, not the farmers.. but anything is better than nothing. i guesss

Comments

[John Stephens]

We have a guy here that opened up a coffee shop in town using only Fair Trade coffee. They sell it at church as a fundraiser for a mission trip, but I don't know how well that goes.

[Southern Beale]

We sell fair trade coffee at my church. It's a youth fundraiser, and a joint effort between the youth and outreach committees. It's a great program, great coffee (and hot chocolate and teas, too) ... very successful. We also sell mugs.

We do it through the Prebyterian Coffee Project:

http://www.pcusa.org/coffee/

I recommend it. Great way to get the congregation engaged in the trade justice issue, great way for the youth to be involved in outreach.

[gavin]

thanks for the tips. i know there is some outlets within the methodist church (my denom) it is just a matter of getting plugged into the easiest manner, so thanks again.

[ghia]

Maybe check with CoolPeopleCare.org....I know they recently branded their own fair trade coffee, so perhaps they have a few ideas. (And they are based here in Nashville....founder Sam Davidson is part of the blogging community)

[gavin]

thanks, for the cpc update. i know sam well.

[Rodney North]

Hi. I'm from Equal Exchange and we're the Fair Trade coffee (& tea & chocolate, etc) people who established the Fair Trade Coffee Project with the Presbyterian community that "Southern Beale" mentioned above. We also have a similar project with the United Methodist Church (& 6 other denominations). See www.equalexchange.coop/interfaith-program and then look at the list of links to partner denominations on the left-hand side. The program is also open to any house of worship (Baptist, Pentecostal, Jewish, etc.) but within the formal partnerships participating congregations can access even more educational materials & such.

[gavin]

thanks rodney, i've been to your site before, but couldn't seem to find it in the time of this post.