The Forest Foundation, Inc.

“The goal is to create a place were people can meet, shop, share and educate themselves about important issues of the day, and show their support for sustainable development through their purchases,” says Marc Dreyfors, the Forest Foundation’s President. “We are hoping that we can gain a critical mass of support in Chapel Hill/Carrboro area to launch the third fair trade store in the Triangle.

“One World Market in Durham and 10,000 Villages in Raleigh have grown and prospered over the last ten years. It is time for Chapel Hill to join the ranks of progressive communities with a fair trade store— using a market-based model to assist artisans and crafts people all over the world with market access and poverty alleviation. The store would be a great asset for the community, where students and faculty alike can find a place of continuity for fair trade, environmental and social justice activism. In addition, the store could be a center for student and faculty research and training on small business models and sustainable development.”

The goal is to model the store on Global Exchange in San Francisco , a leader in progressive community action and involvement (see www.globalexchange.org). The Fair Trade Store would like be a member of Ten Thousand Villages and SERRV. It will provide vital, fair income to Third World people by importing and selling their handicrafts and telling their stories. This income helps pay for food, education, health care and housing for under-employed and low-income artisans. Chapel Hill, NC is the only community in the Triangle that does not currently have a fair trade store. Being a college town, a fair trade could serve multiple missions in community education, student education and activism and a focal point for building more sustainable communities. A thorough market study should be conducted to determine if the community will support such a venture and the types of goods and services needed and that should be offered.

The Fair Trade Store and Cafe, Chapel Hill operated by The Forest Foundation, a 501 (c)(3) nonprofit, as a marketing program that sells handcrafted items made by economically impoverished people in developing regions of the world. The name comes from its main goal: to create economic opportunities that help people to help themselves. The Fair Trade Store is designed to benefit craftspeople by providing jobs with dignity, and sees the production and marketing of crafts as good way to meet human needs and address unjust living conditions around the world.

The goal will be to raise consumer awareness and increase market share of fairly trade, sustainably made goods. The Store would be modelled after Global Exchange in San Francisco, which combines retail stores with education and activism. Global Exchange has offered assistance in the form of bringing staff to aid in structural and development components and education, as well as creating partner a partner or affiliate relationship.

The Fair Trade Store, Chapel Hill is a part of a 175 store network that sells products under the guidelines of the Fair Trade Federation and International Federation for Alternative Trade (IFAT). Each store is operated by a nonprofit organization that depends upon the support of volunteers to insure that the profits of the sale of Third World products are benefiting the producer and not the sellers. Durham has One World Market and Raleigh has Ten Thousand Villages, creating the third fair trade store in the Triangle. Fair traders pay producers fair prices for their goods. They do not exploit people or the environment The Fair Trade Store, Chapel Hill partners with the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) and SERRV whose primary activities are the purchase, import, and sale of handicrafts from impoverished artisans. During the Fiscal Year 1999, MCC sold over 17 million dollars of retail products in the U.S. and Canada with the profits providing approximately 13,000 full time jobs for a full year for Third World artisans.

The Fair Trade Store will open in downtown Chapel Hill on the main street across from the University of North Carolina. This store offers a unique opportunity for Chapel Hill to be “international partners” with the people who produce the crafts. The store will offer not only the high quality handicrafts, clothes and furniture from over 30 Third World countries but will promote the mission of fair trade and certification and seek to involve our community in an educational and economic partnership. The benefit (i.e. profit) from the sales, if any, inures exclusively to the artisans themselves, as no surplus from the sales is retained by any private individual.