“Enslaving poverty in a world of abundance is an intolerable violation of God’s good creation.”
—Book of Confessions, 9.46
A form of hunger ministry
The Presbyterian Hunger Program works to alleviate hunger and eliminate its causes.
Fair Trade is an economic model that helps people:
- Access needed resources
- Provide for their families
- Gain control over their lives
- Live with increased dignity
- Tell their stories
The PC(USA) has been involved in Fair Trade since 2001, when the Presbyterian Coffee Project was launched.
Did you know?
The PC(USA)’s Fair Trade work is coordinated by the Presbyterian Hunger Program, thanks in part to support by the One Great Hour of Sharing Offering. PHP is thankful for the continued generosity of Presbyterians that enables us—together—to witness the healing love of Christ. Learn how your congregation can support OGHS, or give today.
How do I look up products and companies?
Visit Fair Trade USA for a full list of certified products and companies.
Make it a practice to ask stores about their purchasing and whether any of the products they carry are Fair Trade. Look for the following labels on products from these three Fair Trade certifying organizations:
Fairtrade International (formerly Fairtrade Labeling Organization or FLO)
Institute for Market Ecology (IMO)
Fair Trade USA
The World Fair Trade Organization is a strong Fair Trade producer support association.
If you are visiting a website and the company or organization displays the World Fair Trade Organization logo, you know they are Fair Trade.
Global Marketplace Partners
A number of organizations partner with the PC(USA) Marketplace at large churchwide gatherings of the PC(USA). They are excellent sources of responsibly made products, whether you are looking to purchase one gift now or coordinate a holiday bazaar in the fall. Please return to these organizations and allow them to become primary sources for your gifts and products. Whether you are buying for yourself or for others, your purchases benefit not only the people who use and enjoy the items, but also, perhaps most importantly, the people around the world who make them — and who often rely on our support to live their lives in dignity rather than poverty.
Partners related to PC(USA)
Café Justo (Mexico)
Café Justo is a coffee grower cooperative based in Salvador Urbina, Chiapas, Mexico that markets organic coffee which is grown, harvested and marketed in the spirit of justice. Its mission is to address root causes of immigration economics, by connecting coffee growers directly with coffee drinkers. Growers own every aspect of the business from the cultivation, to the processing of the green beans, to the roasting, packing, shipping and exporting. The coffee is grown in Chiapas and transported to Agua Prieta, Sonora, where it is roasted, packaged and exported directly to customers in the United States.
CAM Cabin Crafts (United States, Appalachian region)
A project of the Coalition for Appalachian Ministry
CAM Cabin Crafts sells crafts from more than 115 Appalachian crafters and includes items such as dolls, quilts, food products, woodcrafts, toys and Christmas ornaments. CAM Cabin Crafts offers low-income crafters from the Appalachian region a place to sell their homemade items. The store, strategically located in a log cabin near the entrance to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, provides a welcome source of income for people who live in the area and fosters economic independence for the people of Appalachia.
Shop online through CAM Cabin Crafts.
Creations of Hope (Haiti)
The mission of Creations of Hope is two-fold: to create a U.S. market for Haitian hand-made arts and crafts, and to provide funds for the Haitian Women’s Micro-Finance project. Profits from the sale of Haitian products are given to the loan pool for the micro-finance project (in the future, when the micro-finance project is self sustaining, profits will be gived to other rural cooperative projects). A new organization based in Charleston Atlantic Presbytery, Creations of Hope was incorporated in May 2009, with capital invested by two Americans and two Haitians. Products are purchased directly from the artisans in Haiti and exported to the United States where they are sold online, in retail stores and at Haitian Markets hosted by churches, organizations and individuals.
Equal Exchange (Global)
Founded in 1986, Equal Exchange is the oldest and largest for-profit, 100 percent Fair Trade company in the United States. The PC(USA)’s partner in the Presbyterian Coffee Project, Equal Exchange offers organic, gourmet coffee, tea, sugar, cocoa, chocolate bars and snacks produced by democratically run farmer cooperatives in Latin America, Africa, Asia and the United States. Equal Exchange’s mission is to build long-term trade partnerships that are economically just and environmentally sound, to foster mutually beneficial relationships between farmers and consumers and to demonstrate, through its success, the contribution of worker cooperatives and fair trade to a more equitable, democratic and sustainable world.
Shop the Equal Exchange Interfaith Program Web store.
Fresno Interdenominational Refugee Ministries (Hmong)
Fresno Interdenominational Refugee Ministries makes available Hmong cross stitch and reverse appliqué stitchery and other Southeast Asian refugee crafts. Some crafts have PC(USA) and PW logos.
Phone: (559) 487-1500
Struggle Hope Empowerment- SHE (Pakistan)
Formerly, Girls at Risk, a project of the Presbyterian Education Board in Pakistan.
The SHE Project seeks to empower women and help them improve their own lives and that of their children. The target area consists of 20 villages of Tehsil Sangla, District Nankana. The SHE Project has four objectives: To make women more aware of their rights and not to accept that they can be victims of violence through training and workshops; To reduce violence against women and children by providing temporary shelter homes; To reduce the long term effects of violence by providing rehabilitation services; and To empower and enable financial independence to local women and girls through training in various skills, such as embroidery, tie dying, and sewing.
For more info or to order contact Mrs. Debra Hough.
SERRV International
Enrich your life with beautiful handcrafted items and change the world at the same time. SERRV offers a variety of fairly traded handcrafts and foods from artisan and farmer partners in 35 countries. One of the first alternative trade organizations in the world, SERRV has worked on behalf of the world’s artisans and farmers for 60 years.
Shop the SERRV Web store.
Zatoun (Palestine)
Zatoun is a volunteer-run, non-profit NGO which brings Fair Trade extra virgin olive oil from Palestine and other traditional and symbolic items such as za’atar herb mix, lovely soaps and small embroidered accessories. This is a tangible way to help support the livelihoods of Palestinian families. It also serves to connect Americans at a personal and human level with an issue that threatens world peace and to an issue where individuals often feel powerless and hopeless. Zatoun engages people and helps create networks of awareness and action. As the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda wrote – Action is the Mother of Hope!
Contact: Robert Massoud || 866.294.9729
Shop online at Zatoun.
Zuni Gourmet Peanuts Zuni Gourmet Peanuts (United States)
Zuni Gourmet Peanuts is an enterprise of Presbyterian Homes and Family Services Inc. Zuni Presbyterian Homes in Virginia is a residential community ministry providing nurture, healing and encouragement for adults with mental retardation who may otherwise be homeless or hopeless. The Zuni Peanut Sheltered Workshop promotes independence and self-reliance while providing employment to residents. Under close supervision, adults master skills including the meaningful work of cooking, weighing and packaging delicious peanuts.
Shop the Zuni Peanuts web store.
Other Partners
BontaniPharm (United States)
BotaniPharm is a 100 percent grower-owned company dedicated to producing high quality, environmentally sustainable botanical products for the health conscious consumer. BotaniPharm’s mission is to make medicinal plant production a viable economic option for the small farmer while at the same time providing premium quality natural products to both consumers and researchers. It was formed as an outgrowth of a series of Small Business Innovation Research grants from USDA Rural Development and the National Institutes of Health National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. Products include organic dietary supplements, soaps, skin care products, honey and hand tied brooms and other products from member farms in Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Alabama.
Colores del Pueblo (Guatemala)
Colores del Pueblo is a fair trade organization working directly with artisan cooperatives in Guatemala. By paying a fair wage, not only are the artisans able to achieve economic self-sufficiency, but also encouraged to continue important cultural craft traditions like weaving and basket-making. They make beautiful, high-quality, hand-woven clerical stoles, clothing, shawls and scarves, purses and pouches, beaded jewelry, and more.
Eighth Wonder
Eighth Wonder is a Fair Trade enterprise dedicated to supporting the indigenous cultures of northern Luzon, Philippines and their centuries-old tradition of community rice farming. As the U.S.-based marketing partner for the Cordillera Heirloom Rice Project, Eighth Wonder is working directly with the farmers to develop and sell their exceptional heirloom rice as a gourmet rice in North America. By building a sustainable and culturally sound economic enterprise, the farmers are generating a solid, livable income for themselves and their families. Simultaneously, they are helping to preserve their historic, UNESCO designated high-elevation rice terraces. Shop Eighth Wonder’s online store or call direct for your holiday bazaar orders.
Esperanza en Acción (Nicaragua)
Esperanza en Acción (“Hope through Action”) is a fair trade organization based in Nicaragua that provides Nicaraguan artisans with the tools to lift themselves out of poverty by offering technical assistance and quality consultation in addition to education and practice in calculating a fair wage. Esperanza en Acción also works to connect these artisans to local and international fair trade markets so that they receive a living wage for their work. Additionally, we strive to educate people of the “First World” to empower us all to help transform the global economic system into one that is fair for ALL people.
Mira Fair Trade (India)
Mira Fair Trade strives to promote social justice by working directly with underprivileged artisans by paying them fair wages to help them develop the knowledge to support themselves and their families. The Mira Fair Trade team works with over 200 artisans in India to design amazing handmade products for the Western market.
View Mira Fair Trade online store.
Mayan Hands (Guatemala)
Mayan Hands is a small fair trade organization, founded in 1989, which works with more than 200 women organized in 12 cooperative groups. These talented weavers produce beautiful, high quality textiles which Mayan Hands is proud to market. Earning a fair return for their work empowers the weavers and allows them to feed their families, send their children to school and harbor hopes for a better future.
View Mayan Hands online store.
Original T-Bag Designs (South Africa)
Original T-Bag Designs is a collective of artists who live in an informal settlement in Hout Bay, South Africa. With recycled tea bags as their canvases they are painting themselves out of poverty. The money earned by the artists helps to support a community of 125 people.
Shop the Original T-Bag Designs Web store.
Prosperity Candle
Prosperity Candle is a social enterprise with a simple yet bold mission: empowering women to escape poverty through entrepreneurship. We believe that investing in women creates the foundation for a peaceful and prosperous society. All of our products are produced by women entrepreneurs in and from regions of distress globally. By purchasing these gifts, you are directly creating economic opportunity for women rebuilding their lives, ensuring that they are able to not just survive but thrive – a ripple effect which benefits her, her family and her broader community.
Transform the lives of more women and their communities by sparking change through your purchases and gifts today!
Rahab’s Rope
The vision of Rahab’s Rope is to see lives transformed by God’s love in action, to reveal His love in a way they can see, understand and respond to in faith. The women must first be rescued from human trafficking then provided with treatment for physical and emotional needs. They need to be taught that they have value and nurtured in love and faith. And finally to help women rebuild their lives by providing financial and vocational skills; job placement and funding for micro-business start-ups and to re-enter their communities and one by one, to see each one reach one.
Shop online at Rahab’s Rope online store.
Upavim Artesania: Unidas Para Vivir Mejor UPAVIM (Guatemala)
UPAVIM is a nonprofit women’s cooperative in Guatemala City dedicated to the sale of fair trade crafts. All profits from UPAVIM’s crafts sales go toward the empowerment of women and community service programs.
Shop the UPAVIM Web store.
Women’s Bean Project (United States)
Since 1989, the Women’s Bean Project, a nonprofit business, has helped women break the cycle of chronic poverty and unemployment by teaching workplace competencies within the context of two active businesses: production and sales (wholesale and retail) of a wide variety of signature soup and gourmet food mixes and a catering service. Our goal is to assist women living in poverty to stabilize their lives, improve their self-esteem and ultimately move toward long-term employment and self-sufficiency.
Shop the Women’s Bean Project Web store.
Incorporate prayers for Fair Trade farmers and artisans all over the world into your own prayers and into the prayers of your congregation.
Use Fair Trade coffee, tea, cocoa and other products during fellowship hour and anywhere coffee is served at church. Visit the Presbyterian Coffee Project page for congregations for ideas on how to get started and keep momentum going.
Host a sale: Sell Fair Trade products to members. Check out our Presbyterian Coffee Project sales page and Global Marketplace Host a Sale page for ideas.
Educate members of the congregation and community using Educational Materials from PC(USA) and Fair Trade partner organizations.
Offer a Fair Trade Bible Study at church using Fair Trade: Using our Purchasing Power for Justice and Hope by Rev. Judy Hoffhine and Ruth Brand Farrell.
Preach about Fair Trade or otherwise lift up Fair Trade stories and good news during worship.
Encourage other congregations in your neighborhood or Presbytery to support Fair Trade. Also consider working with your Presbytery’s camp or conference center, local campus ministries or other Presbyterian facilities or ministries within your Presbytery’s bounds.
Fair Trade Your Congregation: Encourage your church to support and commit to Fair Trade.
Fair Trade Your Town:Encourage your town, city or county government to make a commitment to support Fair Trade.
Fair Trade Your College or University
Fair Trade Your School: Encourage the schools in your community to make a commitment to support Fair Trade.
- Start or support a Fair Trade School campaign in your community.
- Utilize Sunday School as a way to educate the children in your congregation the value of choosing Fair Trade and ethical options.
