Crossroads
The Newsletter of the Catholic Campus Ministry Association
June 2008 issue

By Lois Harr
Director of Campus Ministry & Social Action
Manhattan College

Over the course of a weekend in June last year, I became a Certified Fair Trade Ambassador at a training in New Windsor, MD sponsored by Catholic Relief Services. In so doing I agreed to spread the word and promote Fair Trade both personally and professionally. In Fair Trade, there are fewer intermediaries to push up prices and gobble up profits so farmers and producers receive a fair price for their products. Production is safe, sustainable, and often organic in the case of food products. Fair Trade producers are organized into local co-operatives and use some of their income for community projects like schools and health clinics.

My road to and from New Windsor has been marked by a growing relationship between Catholic Relief Services and the Office of Campus Ministry & Social Action at Manhattan College in the Bronx. Prior to the Fair Trade training, we had hosted two CRS speakers at the College and we made initial inquiries about Fair Trade coffee and chocolate. With CRS support we organized our first retreat immersion experience at Rostro de Cristo (Face of Christ) in Duran, Ecuador. In Ecuador we met local staff who emphasized the importance of Fair Trade products like coffee, flowers and bananas in CRS's work for authentic, sustainable human development.

Once back in the States, John Reilly, my husband, and I and some of the Rostro students attended the United Students for Fair Trade's Convergence in Boston . (John had agreed to serve as a chaperone in Ecuador when we were short-staffed.) Our personal and professional interest was becoming more and more engaged. It seemed a natural fit when CRS was recruiting for the Fair Trade training and we agreed to participate. We spent a weekend with other parish, diocesan and college representatives learning about many aspects of Fair Trade, its history, economics, ecology, procedures for purchasing, and the like. But for me as a campus minister, the most exciting aspect of the weekend was seeing Fair Trade as an opportunity to put Catholic Social Teaching into practice on campus.

As an Ambassador, I worked with Manhattan students to get our dining services to serve Fair Trade coffee and to co-sponsor a “Fair Trade Celebration” – dessert and coffee, information and prizes – to let the wider campus community know about their newest coffee selections. We held a Fair Trade Craft Sale and sold Divine Chocolate to support the 2008 trip to Ecuador. Recently we hosted a Fair Trade and Sustainability Panel. We purchased “Sweat-Free” t-shirts for our Blood Drive and students hope to mount a “market building” campaign to bring Fair Trade bananas to campus. We had CRS and NY Archdiocesan staff members speak on Fair Trade, sustainability and care for God's creation at a teach-in on Global Warming and Climate Change. During exam week we will participate in the World's Largest Fair Trade Coffee Break. Next year we hope to purchase Fair Trade Eco-Palms.

Fair Trade is an excellent example of the principles of Catholic Social Teaching in action, improving the lives of poor and marginalized people in many parts of the world. Fair Trade lifts up and honors human dignity, promotes the common good and practices subsidiarity; it is an example of good stewardship and clearly an option for the poor. But perhaps most significantly for our students, it helps them act in solidarity. “Economic Justice for All” reminds us that solidarity, “..is not a feeling of vague compassion or shallow distress at the misfortunes of so many people, both near and far. On the contrary, it is a firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good.” When students use their buying power to make careful, informed purchases, they are acting in solidarity, in right relationship with their brothers and sisters around the world.

I said earlier that as a CRS Ambassador, I agreed to promote Fair Trade in my professional and personal life. This has been a source of fun and much more conscientious shopping for my husband and me. All the coffee, tea, sugar and chocolate in our house and at his office are Fair Trade. Family and friends received Fair Trade “goodie bags” and crafts at Christmas and Easter. His staff all have Sweat Free shirts emblazoned with his company logo. We presented on Fair Trade at a local parish during Lent. We read newspapers differently, looking for news about Fair Trade, economics, Ecuador. We talk about our faith in a new way. We're acting on it in a new way as well.