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Fair Trade Coffee/ UMCOR Coffee Project
The Youth Group will be selling coffee as an on-going fund-raiser for our activities this year. Fair trade products provide a much larger proportion of the cost of a product to the growers or producers. For the average pound of coffee, only 2% is returned to the growers and 64% to the processors. UMCOR has joined with a distributor called Equal Exchange to bring coffee to be sold so that 1/3 of the cost returns to the grower and 1/3 to a cooperative which provides infrastructure support to the growers’ community. Five percent of the Equal Exchange portion will be donated to UMCOR. We will buy the coffee at wholesale prices and sell it (ground or whole bean) at a small profit. We plan to sell during the fellowship hour on the third Sunday of each month. You may buy what we have available or place an order for a specific type of coffee. In addition to coffee, Equal Exchange sells tea, hot chocolate, baking cocoa and chocolate bars. They also sell snack products like pecans, dried cranberries and almonds. Stop by the table and pick up a brochure, try a sample cup of the coffee, and decide whether you would like to buy a pound.

The General Conference 2004 passed a resolution regarding denomination wide purchase of coffee through Equal Exchange. An excerpt of that resolution follows.

“…..Therefore, be it resolved that, in seeking an authentic Christian response to the plight of developing world small individual coffee farmers, their families, and their communities, the General Conference of the United Methodist church urges all agencies of the church, local congregations and their affiliated organizations that use coffee to purchase coffee for corporate and personal use through the fair trade partner, Equal Exchange or through another fair trade organization. “

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