Believe it or not, but the holiday season is finally upon us. A few years ago, Global Exchange developed the Fair Trade Holiday Gift Pledge in order to increase awareness of Fair Trade and garner commitments from consumers to buy Fair Trade during the holidays and the coming year.

Well, this year we’ve taken it a few steps further and have partnered with some incredible Fair Trade advocates nationwide to make it easier to shop Fair Trade while helping you save money along the way by offering exclusive Fair Trade discounts.

Announcing the Give Fair Trade Campaign!

Step one. Take the Fair Trade Holiday Gift Pledge and make your commitment to increase awareness about Fair Trade to your community and shop Fair Trade this holiday season.

Step two. Register your pledge, so we can keep track of how many people are taking the challenge.

Step three. Head over to the Give Fair Trade campaign blog and find out about the daily featured Fair Trade gift and special offers, as well as moving stories behind the item’s producers. These features will run from November 15th to December 20th and are available exclusively to Fair Traders like yourself.

And why should you take the Give Fair Trade pledge? Well…

  • Each gift empowers farmers and artisans with dignified work, and adequate incomes to access nutrition, health care, education, etc for their families
  • If all of us Give Fair Trade this year, our collective purchasing power will have an enormous impact on lifting families out of poverty
  • Great Fair Trade gifts are available for everyone on your list, both kids and adults (even coworker/corporate gifts, like bags of Fair Trade coffee)
  • Giving Fair Trade gifts is an easy way to shift some of your purchasing to Fair Trade.
  • You will educate the person receiving the gift about Fair Trade.
  • Make holiday shopping a breeze…walk into a Fair Trade shop (or online store) with your holiday shopping list and walk out with your holiday shopping complete (and maybe wrapped)!

Take the pledge and get involved with the Give Fair Trade campaign this year! For an easy way to get those daily deal doses, follow @GiveFairTrade on twitter. Also, spread the word of the campaign to your friends, colleagues and community by passing out flyers.

A special thanks to the Give Fair Trade campaign organizers, Equal Exchange, Fair Trade Federation, Fair Trade LA, Fair Trade Resource Network, Fair Trade Towns, Fair Trade USA, Global Exchange, Green America, NY State Labor-Religion Coalition, Oasis, United Church of Christ, United Methodist Church-General Board on Church and Society, United Methodist Committee on Relief and additional partners, DC Fair Trade Network & Milwaukee Fair Trade Coalition.

Martha Stewart Animal PalsThe Martha Stewart Show recently featured Global Exchange’s line of Fair Trade Animal Pal Alpaca dolls during a segment of her show.  You can watch the entire show here (near end of the show.)  The segment features Faraway Farm owners Leda Blumberg, one of Global Exchange’s customers.

You can check out our entire line of Fair Trade Animal Pals at http://www.globalexchangestore.org/Soft-and-Cozy-Animal-Pals-p/peap1.htm.

Halloween is over, but keep the celebration going and start thinking about the holidays. Fair Trade Federation Executive Director, Carmen Iezzi offered to write a guest blog post for Global Exchange to highlight the newly released FTF Holiday Gift Guide for all your Fair Trade gifting needs.

We all know that the holidays are a time for reconnecting with family and friends. They are also a time to connect with our global community. When you support Fair Trade, you become part of a network of people dedicated to facilitating change for disadvantaged artisans and farmers.

To make this process simple, the Fair Trade Federation has created a NEW holiday gift guide full of products that empower women, provide education for children, heal the earth, and so much more!

It’s easy! You can just click on the link in each profile and visit FairTrade.us, an independent online news magazine celebrating Fair Trade, to read a full review of these and other great products and link directly to the seller of each one!

Whether you’re looking for a gift for Mom, Dad, the kids, or to dress your home in style, your purchases change lives! All of the gifts in this guide are sold by fully committed Fair Trade Organizations – members of the Fair Trade Federation – so you know these great choices really do make a difference.

Celebrate Fair Trade
In addition to the great items in the guide, they have even more ideas to Fair Trade your holiday and your life:

  • Prepare a great Fair Trade Dish,
  • Educate your Community with Films and Speakers,
  • Invest in or Donate to a Fair Trade Organization,
  • Host a Fair Trade Home Party when the weather’s too bad to go out,
  • Suggest your office choose Fair Trade for its Corporate Gifts,
  • So much more!!

At www.FairTradeFederation.org and www.FairTrade.us, you can find these and other great ways to be an advocate for change throughout the year.

For more than sixty years, Fair Trade Organizations have connected you with artisans and farmers across the globe by delivering high quality products that create a tremendous impact on their communities. This holiday season, let’s continue that momentum for change.

Be sure to check out this gift guide for a list of great places to get Fair Trade gifts this holiday season, including our own Global Exchange stores.

Also, you can find out more about Carmen Iezzi in this Change.org Faces of Fair Trade feature on her.