Other Contacts: Rio Wroght, riowight@sbcglobal.net
April 29, 2003
Since February, when we went around Berkeley High classes (around 600 students) and gave teach-in's about modern day slavery, fair trade, and the chocolate industry, we have been selling fair trade chocolate as a fundraiser with much success. Our funds raised at the end of the year will be split three equal ways between Amnesty International, our AI group's funds, and Global Exchange. We have taken a new directed from this half of the year and bisected our groups goals: one group is working to change our school's P.E. uniforms to fair-trade and the other group, of which I am partaking, is geared to change our school's clubs and sports teams fundraisers to fair trade chocolate.
We are trying to find a fundraising chocolate that is somewhat competitive to the deeply institutionalized See's Candy fundraiser. Although I am not completely sure, I believe the See's fundraiser is like this: club pays $.50 per bar and sells at $1.50 per bar for a bar around 3.5 oz. Since this is who we are trying to beat, do you know of any chocolate fundraisers that are competitively similar to this? The best we have found is the Divine one, where a bar costs us $.70 and we sell them at $1 but the bar is only 1.5 oz. So we are writing a letter to the clubs and sports teams advisors and coaches explaining what our group has done, what is unethical about using See's, M&M/Mars, and Hershies as a fundraiser, and then where they can order the Divine chocolate from to use the next time. It just seems that most people are not going to change if the best fair trade fundraiser is the Divine one since the other fundraiser (See's, etc.) are such a better deal and the people using them really just care about how much money they are getting for their fundraiser. So if you know more info about fair trade fundraisers and/or non-fair trade fundraisers--since we need some more info about them to put in out letter--please let us know too.
January 10, 2003
Our group is preparing to do teach-ins about slavery with a focus in the chocolate industry at our school during the third week of February. We are also trying to get fair-trade chocolate to sell as fundraisers and also to raise awareness. Local companies we are contacted about this are Berkeley Bowl, Whole foods Market, and Elephant Pharmacy, which all sell fair-trade chocolate. We are hoping that these companies can sell us fundraiser chocolate for minimal cost or possibly donate some. The funds we raise from selling the chocolate will be split. %70 to Free the Slaves and %30 for our own funds to do more projects. We have talked about you coming and speaking at our school about these issues if you would. We have yet to decide when, but it would most likely be around the third week in February. If you can excellent, if not, maybe when you have available time. I'll keep you in touch with our happenings. Thank you for your help and support.
December 8, 2002
Lately we've been doing a project focused on the fair trade issue, especially on the subject of chocolate. As part of our project we are trying to get local grocery stores and others to offer fair trade chocolate and set up a Fair Trade chocolate fundraiser. We have researched and contacted Free the slaves, a foundation fighting for the rights of farm workers and fair trade, their website is www.Freetheslaves.net. After reseaching the fair trade issue, we have decided to do classroom teach ins at our school Berkeley High. We would also like to accompany our teach ins with a fundraising fair trade chocolate sale to create awareness on the fair trade issue and support local stores that sell fair trade goods. Profits from the sale will go to our Amnesty chapter and Free the slaves. I have gone to your website and noticed that you have a fundraising program, and we at Amnesty would love to support Global exchange in our fundraiser. We are planning to have our fundraiser on December 19th and 20th.
We are inquiring if you knew any chocolate fundraisers available. We tried to get in touch with SERRV about fundraising, but have not heard back yet. Do you know any stores, perhaps chains such as Safeway and Albertson's, that would be willing to offer Fair Trade chocolate? We are also interested if you would be able to speak at our school about this issue. We already have the Fair Trade Chocolate Action Kit, so that information is already available to us. Anything else you could provide would be very much appreciated.
November 16, 2002
Berkeley High School's chapter of Amnesty International has chosen to focus on slave chocolate, a project which will culminate in teach-ins throughout our school in January. We have found your web site very useful and have downloaded the action packet and would like to establish a permanent contact for our group.
