Organic & Fair Trade News

Those living or travelling near Lake Charles, Louisiana this weekend will have an opportunity to see, feel and taste our products in person!

Organic Fair Trade will have a tent at the first annual Pony Fest tomorrow, Saturday August 25th, at Central School in Lake Charles.  While this will be our third time to display our products in a "real" (as opposed to "Web") setting, we have really gone all out for this one!  We will have literally hundreds of organic and/or fair trade products for sale, including clothing, jewelry, soap, christmas ornaments, cell phone cases, wallets, keychains and more!  In addition, we will also have organic iced coffee, organic yerba mate latte's, organic cookies, organic brownies and organic sodas for sale!

Our biggest investment has been in fair trade clothing and jewelry, as we feel these items are most used in daily life and are, we feel, the most interesting and beautiful products we offer.  We have even constructed a 4' x 4' x 8' portable dressing room so you can try the clothes on!  This is something that has been requested at past events, so we are happy to now be able to offer it.

As we have been planning this event, our goal has been to create a space, however small and temporary, that clearly represents our vision for the world we want to live in.  We'll be bringing lots of chairs, so even if you don't plan to buy anything, we invite you to come, sit, and enjoy the good company!

To learn more about Poor Pony and Pony Fest we invite you to visit their website at www.poorpony.com.

We wrote this as an informational piece about our company to be displayed at an upcoming festival in Lake Charles, Louisiana where we will have a booth.  We thought we would share this with our online community as well!

Organic Fair Trade grew from the idea that making a living for our family, and making the world a better place could be one in the same.

We felt that the only way to counteract the negative relationships in the world, such as those between poor producers and rich consumers, was to promote our own vision of loving relationships.  We wished for everything in our home to be either fair trade, organic, or both.  But this seemed impossible as the products were either not available where we lived, or were too expensive.

We knew that this would only change if we ourselves began to devote our energies toward increasing quality in our world—quality of lives, as well as quality of products.  So beginning in March of 2006, we began forming relationships with others who shared our vision of a peaceful, healthy, and equitable world.

While Organic Fair Trade offers a wide selection of products that carry either organic certifications, fair trade certifications, or both, our main emphasis is currently upon fair trade clothing, jewelry and accessories for both men and women.  We know that these industries are under great pressure by economic forces, large companies who wish to minimize cost and capture their share of this lucrative market.  Primarily young teenage women across Latin America, Africa and Asia carry most of the burden, working long hours in usually unsafe conditions for less than minimal wages.

Our clothing, handbags, wallets, hats, scarves, dresses, shirts, necklaces, rings and bracelets are from virtually every place in the world where workers are being exploited.  However our products are different in that they represent the work of small collectives of people who have voluntarily agreed to work with small importers in the United States, with the mutual guarantee of reasonable working conditions, good pay, investments in long term growth, and an honest, carefully produced product. We feel the quality of work speaks for itself.

In addition to durable items, however, we also carry a broad selection of organic food and supplements including coffee, yerba mate, oils and organic nut butters, raw cacao, and several exotic delicacies. We also have a good selection of organic mattresses, blankets, pillows, comforters and sets.

We are based in Lafayette, Louisiana, and while we currently do most of our sales through the Internet, we are always in search of opportunities to present our selection in a face to face manner, and hope to one day open a physical store.

If you would like to get in touch, please visit us on the web at www.organic-fair-trade.com.  We can also be reached by phone at (337) 255-3355.

Thank you for business, and thank you for supporting fair trade!