Celebrate Mother's Day the "Fair Trade" Way

For this Mother’s Day, Fair Trade Teaneck is mobilizing local residents to honor their mothers with Fair Trade chocolate, flowers, and gifts in support of mothers in the global south whose benefits from Fair Trade sales include a chance for economic self-sufficiency and a promising future.

Mother’s Day (May 12) falls on the same weekend as World Fair Trade Day (May 11). Held every year on the second Saturday in May, World Fair Trade Day is an international celebration and promotion of Fair Trade. Events are held in over 80 countries. It is anticipated that approximately 100,000 people will attend nearly 1000 events in the U.S. and Canada throughout the month of May in recognition of this event.

Two local stores providing Fair Trade products expect a brisk business. The Teaneck General Store, 502A Cedar Lane, offers a wide range of Fair Trade gifts. Consumers can take a Fair Trade coffee break as well.

“The lives of farmers and producers in developing countries are impacted by what we buy,” said Bruce Prince, owner of the Teaneck General Store. “It requires so little of us, and yet it is indeed a powerful action. We are proud to carry Fair Trade items.”

Tiger Lily Flowers, 569 Cedar Lane, sells Fair Trade roses as well as a large selection of Fair Trade crafts and other gifts.

To have their flowers certified to be Fair Trade, a farm must comply with Fair Trade standards of environmental sustainability by operating as organic or pesticide-free, said Tim Blunk, owner of Tiger Lily Flowers.

“Your average flower has something like 700 times the number of pesticides commonly found and used in fruits and vegetables,” said Blunk. In turn, he explained, many individuals working on the farms, who are primarily women, experience significant health problems, such as cancers, skin diseases, and other health issues.

Ponte Tresa, the farm Blunk purchases from in Ecuador, sells both Fair Trade and non-Fair Trade flowers. By selling directly to markets, Fair Trade flowers generally gross 13-15% higher prices for the farm, Blunk said, and so there is a producers’ committee, composed primarily of the women who work there, who get together to decide what they will use the surplus proceeds for.

“That 13% goes to a fund which is collectively managed by this committee on the farm, and they apply it to whatever’s needed by the particular people on that farm, which could be child care, a nurse practitioner that visits the farm on a regular basis, and paying real wages as opposed to subsistence wages.”

Teaneck, the 21^st Fair Trade town in the U.S. and 4^th Fair Trade town in New Jersey, is now the home of 22 Fair Trade providers.

Recently, Fair Trade Teaneck hosted a Fair Trade coffee producer from Guatemala, Miguel Mateo Sebastian, as part of Fair Trade USA’s 10-day Farmer and Artisan Tour throughout the northeast United States. This visit allowed Teaneck residents to learn from and connect with the people who benefit directly from Fair Trade.

”We were able to bring the Fair Trade story home to our neighbors,” said Dennis Klein, chair of the Fair Trade Teaneck Steering Committee, of the event. “Miguel joined a coffee tasting that presented the distinctive Guatemalan blend and the usual deep Fair Trade flavors. His description of his family’s journey from the devastating Guatemalan civil war to Fair Trade economic justice was truly incandescent.”

Fair Trade is a response to an escalating human rights crisis in developing regions of the world. It is an alternative to free trade that begins with the formal certification of coffee, tea, and apparel, sugar, and other items, whose production complies with the demanding standards of just labor practices, including the abolition of child slave labor; fair wages; and sustainable farming methods. By purchasing Fair Trade products from Fair Trade retailers, consumers can materially help the impoverished and the vulnerable to become self-sufficient and achieve economic justice.

Fair Trade Teaneck is a group of residents, business owners, and community organizations, which was formed in 2010 with the goal of increasing awareness about the social value of certified Fair Trade items and growing Teaneck, N.J. as a Fair Trade Town. For a list of businesses that sell Fair Trade items in Teaneck and to sign a petition urging more local businesses and service organizations to offer Fair Trade items, visit the Fair Trade Teaneck website, www.fairtradeteaneck.org.