Remember when we talked about a more meaningful way to celebrate Christmas and give gifts?  Well I did some research and found some interesting stuff I thought yall might like.

Ten Thousand Villages has all kinds of cool stuff from all around the world.  They are committed to fair trade and buying one of their products helps bring dignity and a life of quality to someone a world away. 

WorldCrafts doesn’t have as diverse of a selection as some of the others, but still some good stuff.  Shopping with them allows us to "Assist more than 60 artisan groups (women and men) around the world who live in poverty in providing for their families."

Friends of the Third World not only provide job training for needy people in Indiana, but they are also committed to fair trade and "true charity" to people around the world.  This site has coffee, tea, flour, etc that has been fairly traded.  In my research I came to understand that a lot of grocery stores now have fairly traded products stocked…you just might have to look a little harder.

Go Fish is my favorite site that I found.  I like what the founder had to say…"What I saw were people from other nations…people who would never know what it would be like to go to sleep hungry…arguing the prices with these poor. What I saw were men and women who had nothing, being forced to sell what they had made for just a fraction of what it was worth in order to put food in the mouths of their children. It was then that I felt God tell me that I was never to take advantage of His poor. It was at that moment that I felt as if God was giving me a vision of a business that would glorify Him and impact the lives of many."  I found some super cute stuff on this site that I’ll be asking for:)  

I set out to try and find a way to spend my money that would impact someone else’s life and not just add to the clutter of mine and my families lives.  Pretty much everything I found was connected to fair trade.  I’ve heard this term plenty of times, but never really given it much thought.  I’m still not fully educated on the matter and would love yall’s input. 

 

Oh and Chapter 4 is up.  If you’re just joining us you can catch up on the whole story here.  I’ll start putting all the chapters under the Lou Ella link so she doesn’t completely monopolize my blog:)