Contact: fairtrade@globalexchange.org

November 2002

Right now I would consider minimal action on my campus. We have lots of supportive signs for Fair Trade Coffee in both Java City and Starbucks. Finals are coming up and for the past year we offered Fair Trade coffee as one of the selections of free coffee for the students. I will make another request for it to happen again this end of the fall semester. In the begining of the semester I printed out about 75 flyers to student organizations. I am considering doing it again next semester.

January 2002

During the summer of 2001, I first started out the campaign with passion and determination that I was going to make a difference. Therefore I absorbed as much information as I could from the Global Exchange activist package, watched the video about Santiago's Story and began talking about it to my peers. The truth about the coffee market could not be kept silent anymore. Before summer I practiced by walking into local coffee shops and asking for the supervisor or owner to actually talk to them and persuade them to serve Fair Trade coffee. Something positive came out because after my talk with Starbucks, the supervisor understood and even served Fair Trade coffee with little cups as free samples. My conviction was that I am a Guatemalan man who knows what coffee means to my country, and I want economic suppression to stop.

In Chico for the fall semester my target strategy was to find out who is in charge of selling the coffee at school and talk to them and educate them. Fortunately, I was directed to the Vice President of Finance, who is already environmentally positive. I educated her about the coffee crises and she did not hesitate to support me. I continued to talk to people about my intentions through word of mouth. After two weeks the V.P. of Finance recommended that I do a presentation for the AS Business Council, the same council she sits on every two weeks. Within less than a month I planned and organized a presentation with handouts for all the council members. During that time I hesitated to meet with the Environmental Action Resourse Center because I felt reorganizing might slow down my progress, and I made that known. People were understanding of my intentions and I eventually did meet with the leader of EARC and they happily funded the handouts and photocopies. [I learned that team members can be very helpful for support, and funding].

The plan of action was to follow the strategies of the activist package because I knew that would save time and energy. For the presentation I dressed professionally and used language that was diplomatic, factual, business, and positive, and that did not drag on common complaints about Capitalism, especially U.S. Capitalism. I mentioned that Europe and the U.S. are already reaping profits and expect more in the years to follow. I mentioned the truth about poverty among coffee farmers because of middlemen and high profit plantations owners. I also mentioned the reasons why I support Fair Trade coffee, and then concluded with the invitation for our school business to become a part of Fair Trade. I finished the presentation with the Santiago's Story video, and then opened up for questions and answers. We planed for Fair Trade coffee to be served as promotion during the whole meeting, and the packets for the members included: the retailers of Fair Trade coffee in CA, Factual information, 10 things to do to help, and many newspaper articles about how Fair Trade has changed people's lives. I received lots of positive feedback and a commitment of serving Fair Traded coffee to students.

Other plans of strategy were to do a lot of research and work to get the process moving faster instead of relying on our council to do all the work. I got in touch with the student activist coordinator at Transfair USA, who helped monitor when the coffee was ordered, and what was ordered with it. I received educational literature from Transfair USA and distributed it to our coffee locations to speed up the promotion. During the promotion we used our marquee to state that Fair Trade coffee is now on campus. After the meeting with the business council, a goal was to gather letters of support from student organizations to show the business council that students demand Fair Trade coffee. Another successful strategy was to get our school to serve and promote free Fair Trade coffee during Finals week, instead of regular coffee. Another successful strategy was to have an article written in the front page of our school newspaper, [to do that a great picture is needed, however we were close, we got on the third page].

Plans for the Spring semester include

1. Creating a flyer that states what Fair Trade is about and to look for the Transfair USA label; and then distribute it to all the student organizations' mailboxes.

2. Have our V.P. of Finance to send messages of promotion to all faculty through e-mail [faculty have their own listserv]. Students have their own listserv, and we plan to promote Fair Trade coffee every time it comes out.

3. Keep promoting Fair Trade on our marquee.

4. Have Fair Trade coffee served free again during Spring semester finals.

5. Have a day where we set up a table supporting and educating about Fair Trade coffee, and offer free samples.

6. Set up sandwich boards with information around the major food shacks, where Fair Trade coffee is sold.

7. Make larger flyers about Fair Trade coffee and post them in as many places as possible

8. Set up tables around our free speech area when other organizations are promoting their cause. We plan to stay positive and motivate people about Fair Trade coffee.

9. Pressure our last coffee retailer that is not signed up with Transfair USA to get signed up.

10. Write articles in the city newspapers to create awareness.

11. Have another article written in our school newspaper.

October 9, 2001

We just met with our dining committee to ask them to start serving Fair Trade Coffee. The meetings was great, lots of good reviews have been made, and all the committee members support our porposal so far. By our next meeting with the comittee, I plan to have gathered at least four support letters from other student groups, so the committee can see that there is a demand for Fair Trade Coffee. I am using the resolution from the packet as a model. Internally their will be things demanded on there committee. We will educate others on campus through tabling and providing information. We also plan to ask for free samples to serve to students and have a taste test. I have contacted Transfair USA about any labels they can provide, and we are also considering developing our own brochures and information to place at each coffee station where Fair Trade is sold.

Thats it for now, thanks so much for all the support. Our expected first line of Fair Trade Coffee is to be provided in the month of November.

May 23, 2001

Here at Chico State the Student Store sells Java Classics coffee. Maybe you know more about that company and what ways can change Chico State toFair Trade. Our new food service building is opening soon and this can be a great chance to serve Fair Trade. We also have many other food buildingsaround the campus. More good news is that Chico State just has been included in some type of environmental committee during our last election,the students got the signatures on petitions and it passed. This could be tool to geting Chico State to switch to Fair Trade Coffee, since some typeof legislation is placed on them. More good news, one of our students launched a campaign for Chico State to sell organic cotton shirts at our store, and after much work it happened last semester. This is a good signof progress. Our student governments is one of the only owned by the students, so hopes are high.

May 9, 2001

Hello I'm from Guatemala and two days ago I started visiting coffee houses to ask for the managers. I printed out the sample letter and everything and planed to talk to the managers to convince them so sell and serve Fairtrade Coffee. I also went to Starbucks, they sell it but a huge step is geting them to serve it. The manager said they have a strict policy about always having fresh coffee every two to three hours, so they don't use it because they throw alot away. They will serve it as a free sample however and people say they like it. That next step will have to take planning. However not all coffe houses have that strict policy, and they have the opportunity to serve it.

Now my question is how to get them connected to Buying Fair Trade coffee in large amount, as well as other supermarket stores, as many as possible. At the bottom of the sample letter there is a phone number where they can get connected, I can give them that and tell them the location is in the Bay area. I live in Chico, CA by the way. It will be helpful if you tell me some of the information about the process that goes on so I would have a greater pursuasion: cost, benifits, coffee types, decafinated, transportation.

This is important to me, and I would like to see some changes. Through Global Exchange I was informed to locally go to churches, and all sort of places where they serve coffee. Even my University. Since they do not buy in bulk, should I reffer them to Starbucks' brand or what can you provide, and what's that cost compared to Starbucks' $11.45 per pound since your farther away.

I do not plan to have coffee houses totally convert to Fair Trade. Even half of what they sell is nice or at least have a selection to choose from so people will get interested. One of the most important things to do is to inform people about Fair Trade and what it does. I just got a lead about puting an article in the newspaper here in Chico. I can do that with your sample letters. The more people understand and are convinced, the more they will buy. It will be more expensive but give me a rough estimate on how much more per cup Fair Trade coffee is at stores. I believe people will buy it if they understand the impact for farmers!!

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