SOCIALLY-CONSCIOUS SHOPPING

Easy Stuff:

  • You can buy Tom’s Shoes.  For every pair you buy, Tom’s Shoes donates one pair to needy children.  TomShoes
  • If you drink coffee, buy fair trade!
  • Fair Trade Coffees:
    • Organic Nicaraguan Mountain Twilight Blend, Organic Deep Peruvian Forest Blend, and Organic Mayan Black Onyx Blend from Millstone;
    • Dean’s Beans Coffee;
    • Starbucks’s Café Estima Blend;
    • Equal Exchange Coffees
  • Fair trade also certifies cocoa (chocolate), dried fruits and vegetables, fresh flowers and plants, fresh fruit, fresh vegetables, fruit juices, grains, nuts, olives and olive oil, seed cotton, spices and herbs, sugar, tea, vanilla, drinks, rice, honey, and apparel (clothes).  When buying any of these things, look for the fair trade symbols.  Encourage your parents and friends to do the same.

 

  • Tompkins Point Apparel (Tompkins) and Hae Now (HaeNow) sell fair trade clothes.
  • Buy Newman’s Own products at the grocery store.  Newman’s Own is a brand of sauces, salad dressings, popcorn, cereal, salsa, wine, and soft drinks named after Paul Newman.  100% of the profits from this company go to charity.  Buying Newman’s own as opposed to other brands is another way to shop responsibly.  If you want to go the extra mile, you can buy Newman’s Own Organics, and be both socially and environmentally conscious while getting food!
  • If you buy bottled water, buy Volvic brand water with the “drink 1, give 10” label.  This program helps provide drinking water to the impoverished (with UNICEF’s support).  Volvic
  • If you go to Starbucks, buy a bottle of Ethos Water.  When you buy one bottle, 5 cents will be donated to help people in Africa, Asia, and Central America get clean water.  Ethos

Issue: Socially-conscious Shopping

When we go shopping, the biggest tragedy we normally worry about is “will I look stupid in this shirt?”  If you are looking at this website though, chances are you know that there are catastrophes far worse than fashion emergencies.  Even so, there’s not much you can do at the shopping mall, right? WRONG!  Nowadays, with people becoming more socially aware with each passing day, it pays for stores to offer products that benefit the world.  By buying products that benefit Earth and its people, you are showing corporations that there is profit to be had in offering such products.  If corporations see this, they will offer more socially and environmentally conscious products, and this will result in a better world for us all.  There are many options for socially conscious shopping; from salad dressing that funds charity to chocolate produced under fair conditions to shoes that help the poor.  Whatever you are buying, shopping doesn’t need to be a guilty pleasure; it can be a fun and painless way to support charity! Note:  We have not tried all of these products and so are not specifically endorsing any of them.  We just wanted to let you know that you can shop in a way that supports charities.

Organizations and More Information:

At the bottom of this webpage there is a list of what fair trade things you can buy at popular chain stores and restaurants.  WhereShop

In-depth Projects:

  • Start a fair trade awareness program at your school.  Spread the word and get people involved.  Getting other people to jump on the bandwagon will make much more of a difference than just buying fair trade yourself.
  • Talk to the principal of your school or the manager of your school cafeteria and encourage them to buy fair trade products for lunch.
  • Hold a fair trade market which will invite fair trade vendors to meet in one place to sell fair trade items.  You can host this event at a local place of worship, school, or community center.  Holding it during the holiday season is a great way to encourage people to give socially conscious gifts.
  • Hand out pamphlets or distribute information about fair trade.  Encourage your friends and family to join in the effort:  FairTradeCoffee; FairTrade.
  • Create a fair trade pamphlet identifying local stores and brands which are fair trade.