A Fair Trade Sale For Peace and Justice

Everyone wants to play fair, after all, it’s one of the first values our Mother taught us. Repay her thoughtfulness by shopping for Mother’s Day this weekend at a Fair Trade Sale in Old Pasadena.

To promote fairness in the real world, the Peace and Social Justice Ministry of St. Andrew Parish will be having its first Fair Trade Sale in the School Auditorium on Sunday April 28, from 7:00 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.

“The purpose of the event is to bring together vendors of fair trade certified products, they will all have their own tables and they’ll be selling products from Africa, from Latin America and Asia too,” says Noel Torro, a parishioner of St. Andrew.

The products to be sold are Fair Trade Certified, Torro says, and Fair Trade Pasadena makes sure that these products are “traded fairly [from] places that have safe-working conditions, that pay a fair wage” that are not typical of “low-income areas around the world that have unfair working conditions.”

The products are also certified to have been made using environmentally sustainable practices.

Torro adds, “These products carry a lot of fairness in their production and in the way they treat their workers. This would be a good event for raising the consciousness of our community (about fair trade practices) and helps people understand it.”

Torrio will find that the products to be sold are perfect as gift items, especially for Mother’s Day which is just around the corner. Attendees will be pleasantly surprised to “find out that these are nice products; these are products that have a story behind them, and at the same time, we’re trying to spread the word about Fair Trade,” adds Torro.

The Peace and Social Justice Ministry at St. Andrew’s Church was formed just over a year ago. Torro explains: “We’re composed of [a] diverse group of members of the community that have an interest in issues of social justice and peace.”

The group is involved in acts of charity and “structural issues in our society that seem to be unfair. For example, it could be immigration or it could be low-income” issues which engender societal problems, says Torro.

To raise education and awareness, the group engages in advocacy for these issues. Torro says they “gather as a group and share these thoughts from a Christian-Catholic perspective but open to all faiths and to all beliefs. We think that these are issues that go beyond the religion.”

The Peace and Social Justice Ministry is an ecumenical group based in St. Andrew, composed of St. Andrew parishioners, and is open to all faiths and beliefs who share similar interests.

To find out more about the Fair Trade Sale, see http://pasadena.buzz/PasadenaEvents/2013/02/18/1361228519