Did you know that IRTF’s fair trade program raises approximately $25,000 each year, providing vital income for fair trade artisans and farmers in Latin America? They depend on groups like IRTF to find markets for their fair trade goods.
And IRTF, with only two paid staff, depends on volunteers to generate this much needed income for the artisans and farmers.
Can you help out IRTF for a couple of hours?
Click here to see the schedule of dates and hours, and sign up for a shift.
Here is our current fair trade sales schedule. Many of these events are open to the public. Some are not. Please inquire. (If you would like to invite IRTF to set up a fair trade booth at your faith congregation, school, workplace or community group, please let us know: irtf@irtfcleveland.org )
SUN NOV 10: St Basil, Brecksville
SAT-SUN NOV 16-17: St Rita, Solon
SAT-SUN NOV 23-24: St Noel, Willoughby Hills
SAT NOV 30: Cleveland Bazaar, 5th Street Arcades, Cleveland
SUN DEC 1: Community of St Peter, Cleveland
WED DEC 4: St Edward High School, Lakewood
FRI DEC 6: Notre Dame-Cathedral Latin High School, Chardon
SAT DEC 7: Church of the Saviour, Cleveland Heights
SAT-SUN DEC 7-8: St Patrick, Cleveland (Near West Side)
MON-TUE DEC 9-10: Magnificat High School, Rocky River
TUE DEC 10: Lake Catholic High School, Mentor
THU DEC 12: St Joseph Academy,Cleveland
THU DEC 12: Walsh Jesuit High School, Cuyahoga Falls
SUN DEC 15: Forest Hill Church Presbyterian, Cleveland Heights
ABOUT IRTF FAIR TRADE
On December 2, 1980, two members of the Cleveland Catholic Mission Team in El Salvador were martyred (murdered): Jean Donovan, a lay woman from St Luke’s Parish in Lakewood, and Sister Dorothy Kazel, an Ursuline sister who had taught at Beaumont School in Cleveland Heights.
The InterReligious Task Force on Central America (IRTF) was formed so that we here in northeast Ohio could live out their legacy—taking action in solidarity with oppressed peoples as they struggle for peace, dignity and justice.
Promoting economic justice through alternative trade organizations is an act of solidarity. Buying fair trade chocolate, tea, cocoa, or coffee is an act of solidarity.
IRTF brought Equal Exchange, the first fair trade coffee company in the US, to Cleveland in the mid-1990s. Many congregations started selling and serving Equal Exchange coffee as an act of justice and solidarity. Heinen’s became the first grocery chain in the US to sell Equal Exchange in all its stores.
IRTF, an interfaith social justice organization, is a leader in the fair trade movement. Shoppers can visit several fair trade stores in the Cleveland-Akron area, in addition to the grocery stores that carry some fair trade products. Through the Ohio Fair Trade Network, IRTF helps to coordinate the annual Ohio Fair Trade Expo, which is held each October at John Carroll University.
WHY FAIR TRADE/ALTERNATIVE TRADE
IRTF works towards justice and equity in the distribution, access to, and participation in the production and consumption of the world’s resources for the people of Central America and Colombia. IRTF examines the corporate-dominated globalization of the economy through the lens of people in Central America and Colombia and how their reality is linked to ours in NE Ohio. IRTF challenges the dominant economic model that results in exploitation both at home and abroad. IRTF offers an alternative through Fair Trade.
Fair trade is a trade model that sets a series of standards to ensure fair wages and human dignity for producers, community investment, environmental sustainability, and more. IRTF promotes Fair Trade as an alternative trade model to the conventional free market system of trade that currently dominates our world and further divides us into “haves” and “have nots.”
At outreach tables throughout the year (schools, faith congregations, community festivals), IRTF sells fair trade items—raising tens of thousands of dollars—so that artisans and farmers in Latin America can earn a living wage. Fair trade is an important of IRTF’s human rights mission: to call together people in NE Ohio to act in solidarity with oppressed peoples of Central America and Colombia to achieve peace, justice, human rights and systemic transformation through nonviolence.
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DONATE NOW
To support IRTF’s fair trade programming, please consider making a tax-deductible donation:
Venmo irtfcleveland
PayPal irtfcleveland
You can also mail a check to: IRTF, 3606 Bridge Ave., Cleveland OH 44113
Thank you for your consideration.
For justice and hope –
IRTF staff, volunteers, and board of trustees
