Fair Trade Finals: Spring 2023 Sign-up by May 5th Looking to host a fair trade event before the semester ends? Sign up for Fair Trade Finals to receive a kit full of goodies to get you started! Finals kits are limited, so order quick to secure your kit! Donations from a few generous Fair Trade Certified brand partners (listed below) make it possible for us to support campaigns hosting a fair trade study break or other event around finals week. Participate with four easy steps: Sign up by May 5th (kits are limited and we anticipate “selling out,” so order soon to secure your kit ..read more

On Valentine’s Day, many of us take time to show extra love to the special people in our lives. This year, we invite you to share the love with the farmers behind your Fair Trade Certified flowers by signing our virtual valentine card. Why Fair Trade Flowers? It is estimated that roughly 250 billion roses are produced for Valentine’s Day every year. All year long, and especially during this spike of demand, conventional flower growers are subjected to long work hours without breaks or fair pay. Flower workers also risk exposure to dozens of different chemicals, mostly from fungi ..read more

June 20th was World Refugee Day, a day designated by the United Nations to celebrate the bravery and strength of refugees around the globe. On June 28th, 2022, Fair Trade Campaigns hosted a free webinar in honor of the holiday with guest speakers Christine Gent, MADE51 World Fair Trade Organization Fair Trade Expert and Margo Wallace Druschel, fair trade campaigner and former worker at Minnesota Council of Churches Refugee Services Office in Mankato, Minnesota. As leaders in both the fair trade movement and the refugee advocacy space, they were the perfect pair to teach our network about the ..read more

By Claire Fitzgerald Leaving home for the first time can feel incredibly daunting. One simple way to make your home-away-from-home feel like a comfortable escape that’s all your own is by personalizing your dorm room/living space with decorations and quality products that reflect your values.  As you get to decorating this year, think about choosing fair trade products wherever possible. When you choose fair trade, you endorse an economic system that provides opportunities for farmers, artisans, and workers across the world to lift themselves out of poverty. You can feel confident that fa ..read more

On February 14, many of us take time to show extra love to the special people in our lives. This year, we’re shifting our usual Valentine’s Day programming to a virtual platform and inviting you to share the love with the farmers behind your Fair Trade flowers and chocolate. Why Chocolate? The global cocoa market’s value is estimated at almost $10 billion but, unfortunately, under conventional, non-Fair Trade production, many cocoa farmers still live in poverty and child labor is often widespread. With Fair Trade cocoa, standards ensure that farmers are paid a fair wage for their work, additio ..read more

2021 did not hold our campaigns back from advocating for Fair Trade and achieving their goals!  Let’s take a look back at the Top 10 Achievements of the Year. 1) We kicked off 2021 with Fair Spring monthly themes!  With the success of Fair Fall in 2020, we continued the monthly themes and interactive resources through Fair Spring. From February-May 2021, we shined light on topics that Fair Traders advocate for through their work. Find recordings of the February, March, and May Fair Spring network calls here.   2) We connected with the Fair Trade community and our partners. In ..read more

Learn more and apply here: https://bit.ly/FTCFellows2022-23 Are you passionate about Fair Trade and social justice? Are you a student or recent graduate looking for rewarding part-time work? Do you want to gain hands-on experience supporting grassroots organizers, developing leaders, building regional networks, and executing communications strategies? If you answered yes to any of these questions, read on to find out more about the 2022-23 Fair Trade Campaigns Fellowship in the Western, Midwest, and Eastern Regions! © Jessica Yurinko   Fair Trade Campaigns is hiring three Fellows to sup ..read more

Many campaigns paused in early 2020 due to the pandemic, but the University of Wisconsin-Madison Campaign was just getting started. Jake McCulloch, the Office of Sustainability Project and Communications Specialist and lead organizer of the UW-Madison Fair Trade Campaign, teamed up with the Labor Codes and Licensing Advisory Committee (LCLAC) and in just 18 months lead UW-Madison in becoming the second Big Ten school and third UW campus to attain Fair Trade designation. During their short timeline the team: introduced Fair Trade products ranging from coffee and tea to apparel and miscellaneo ..read more

The Fair Trade Campaigns Fair Fall programming was a hit with campaigners and advocates alike! Did you miss out on the fun of Fair Fall? Don’t fret! We’ve condensed each of the months themes and resources in our blog post entitled, “Fielding Fair Fall.” Check it out here! With the success of Fair Fall, we decided to continue the monthly themes and resources through Fair Spring. During February, March, April, and May 2021 we will shine light on topics that Fair Traders advocate for through their work. It is also our goal to include more resources and more interactive content to help propel you ..read more

In the fall of 2020, the Fair Trade Campaign staff came together to ask the question, “How can we keep campaigners  engaged even amidst a world full of unanswered questions and fear?” We had to forgo Fair Trade Finals since so many campuses were remote or closing early, so coming up with a new solution was imperative to the success of campaigners across the country. Knowing that some campaigns may want ideas or format to run off of, we decided to start Fair Fall – a semester-long program with varying monthly themes from September to December. We sent out monthly newsletters outlining the ..read more