April 9th, 2004
Over the past two and a half years, the Lawrence Fair Trade Coffee Commission, has implemented fair trade coffee in the unions (through the memorial corporation) and the dining services (through the university) with separate contracts (one with a local roaster and one with Pura Vida). The fair trade expo in 2001 that was organized to put local coffee shops, fair trade companies, and consumers together was instrumental in making these connections between the university and local businesses. Last spring, we organized a week of global awareness, demonstrating the interconnections between economic, social, and environmental justice issues. The week came to conclusion with a music festival in the big community park and Palden Gyatso, a Tibetan monk, came to speak.
This year, the KU Greens are organizing Mayday! an anti sweatshop fashion show for May 1st in the Lawrence Arts Center. The idea is to display an alternative to everyday clothes with sustainable ideas of art and design in fashion and educate the community about sweatshop conditions and the labor sources used to produce our materials, clothes, etc. Right now, 6 (maybe 8) designers are working on natural dyes, recycled and reconstructed clothes, wearable art, and maybe handmade (knit, crochet pieces). We will also show union made, donated apparel from American Apparel, No Enemy, and No Sweat (perhaps more). This show will be $3-5 to cover costs of the venue and locally produced refreshments (beer and wine) will be served. It will coincide with events planned by the Lawrence Art Collective: a political art show at Henry's coffee house and another Dance Dance Revolution night at the Jackpot Saloon starting around 10 pm - lawrence.com has details on this event. a spectacular mayday!
As a prelude to the event, the ECM will host a speaker from Pura Vida (a 100% fair trade company that supplies KU Dining Services with fair trade coffee). This will occur on Thursday April 29th during the Veggie Lunch - 12 o'clock upstairs. The speaker will present information on solutions to the coffee crisis and explain the economics associated with fair trade (from the business angle).
We are a really small group and have had problems keeping people interested and not overwhelmed. So, we have focused our energies on a couple events each semester and connecting it more to local then these national campaigns. It's so great to still be listed on the site! We have been found through your website on several occasions and this usually connects us with cool people! I'm not sure how much energy we can put into the May 8th Fair Trade Day but we could definitely use the information at our mayday event if you would like to send it my way.
March 10, 2003
The presentation for the National Day of Action went well!! We had a nice crowd of 50-60 people. The crowd varied in age and heritage, so we reached many facets of the community. Peter started with a very powerful film and then talked and showed slides. I have received a number of great comments from attendees. I don't think any press attended the event. if they did, they didn't speak with me.
Thank you for all of the support and materials. Your help is greatly appreciated!
Luke
December 2001
The Lawrence Fair Trade Coffee Commission, a project of the KU Green Party, has had great success this semester. We lobbied the Kansas Union Memorial Board successfully to have fair trade coffee served in the Union cafeteria. We are now extending this campaign to the local coffee shops in the Lawrence community. A coffee shop crawl was held in early October, at which KU Greens members passed out literature on fair trade coffee, encouraged local shops who don't carry fair trade to consider beginning, and promised publicity to those who already do. We also gave out free samples of fair trade coffee on campus to make students aware of the fact that it is now available for purchase at the University. In (early) celebration of the Fair Trade Coffee Day of Action, we held an afternoon coffee and cobbler event for students on December 7th, providing them with fine food and information on fair trade. Plans are being made for a fair trade coffee exposition at the University in the Spring, which will connect local businesses with suppliers of fair trade beans.
September 2001
The KU Greens had our first meeting of the semester yesterday evening. There are two individuals in the group who have expressed strong interest in organizing a fair trade coffee campaign at KU. One of them worked on a similar campaign in Topeka last year.
