World Fair Trade Day is May 10; celebrate with the World's Largest Coffee Break & more!

Tomorrow, May 10th, is World Fair Trade Day, and people across the United States are planning to set a world record by getting together tomorrow afternoon for a giant "Fair Trade Coffee Break." (Although if you're not a coffee-drinker, don't despair; it looks like many/most of the gatherings include other fair trade products like tea, wine, chocolate, and fruit... at least one place is offering fair trade bananas dipped in fair trade chocolate, and I'm totally jealous!) There are over 100 events going on in locations across the country; check out the listing here for one near you.

[If you're asking "What's fair trade and why should I care?": the short answer is that fair trade is about ensuring decent pay and humane, non-exploitative working conditions for the people who grow/harvest/make our products; for the long answer, check out my previous posts on the subject.]

I'm participating, and I think it's a fantastic idea for a whole bunch of reasons:

• Meeting great people in my area who are into fair trade and being conscious consumers.
• Standing up and being counted as a fair trade supporter-- all the gatherings are listing the number of attendees for purposes of setting the record-- and I bet there'll be press coverage that will let people know how many of their friends and neighbors showed up and believe in fair trade.
• Free samples of delicious fair trade foods-- what's not to love?
• Helping inform people and maybe make some converts-- hopefully our events will look like so much fun that we'll pull in people off the streets to ask questions and join in!
• Film showings-- my local event is showing Black Gold (about the coffee industry and the effects of fair trade), which I've wanted to see for a while but haven't gotten around to. Many other events seem to be showing this or other films.
• Fair trade flowers for Mother's Day on Sunday-- it seems like at least some of the events will have flowers either for free or for sale, which is great timing! (If they're not at your coffee break, you may also be able to find them at your local Whole Foods or Trader Joe's or other supermarkets; it's a pretty good bet that some of your fellow attendees could point you in the right direction to find fair trade flowers locally.)

So look for an event near you. I'm going to this one in DC tomorrow from 3 to 5pm, near the U Street Metro, which features coffee, tea, chocolate, cookies, and a movie; if you're in the area and want to come too, shoot me an e-mail so we can meet up and chat while we're there! And if you go to one of these events tomorrow, please do come back and leave a comment about how you thought it went.

(Read more about what fair trade is and why it's important to me, where to find 12 different kinds of fair trade products, and my other posts on the subject.)