Published December 16, 2005
Homer woman uses her coffee to promote social justice, fair trade
The connection between the Third World’s coffee pickers and Alaska’s coffee sippers is growing stronger with a new agreement between Catholic Relief Services, the U.S. bishops’ overseas relief and development arm, and the Earth Friendly Coffee Company, based in Homer and Wheat Ridge, Colo.
Catholic Relief Services’ fair trade coffee project has been working to ensure that overseas coffee farmers receive a just wage for their work and that U.S. consumers learn about fair trade and get more for their dollar by cutting out middlemen and lowering overhead costs.
Diane Hughes, of Homer, founded Earth Friendly Coffee Company three years ago after traveling through the mountains of Guatemala to purchase chemical-free, shade-grown gourmet Arabica bean coffee directly from a small cooperative of farmers there.
Hughes’ company belongs to the Fair Trade Federation, an association of wholesalers, retailers and producers committed to providing fair wages and employment opportunities to disadvantaged artisans and farmers worldwide. She was selling Guatemalan coffee online out of her home when Catholic Relief Services contacted her last year in the hopes of expanding the fair-trade network. Would she market her fair-trade coffee to Catholics at a reduced price and use Catholic Relief Services’ label and logo and increase awareness about fair trade?
"Not a problem," Hughes responded.
"Our whole emphasis is selling to the Catholic Church. Everything social justice-wise that I’ve been working for is what CRS works for day in and day out," Hughes explained. "In my heart, I would love to see churches use us as a social justice initiative."
And they have. Hughes has spoken about fair trade at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish in Soldotna and she was also present at the September Discipleship Days conference in Anchorage.
Currently three parishes in the archdiocese are selling Earth Friendly-Catholic Relief Services coffee: Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Our Lady of the Angels in Kenai and St. Joseph in Cordova.
Our Lady of the Angels parishioner Margaret Menting said as of Dec. 1, her parish had sold at least 80 ten-dollar bags of coffee after Sunday Masses.
The parishes purchase the coffee from Hughes, who sends a portion of proceeds back to Catholic Relief Services. The parishes then resell the coffee at a higher price and use the profits for parish ministries.
Menting and other parishioners of various churches are also hoping to sell an additional 300 pounds of coffee to benefit the archdiocese’s "global solidarity partnership" with the Cotabato Archdiocese on the island of Mindanao, Philippines.
A year ago, seven delegates joined Anchorage Archbishop Roger Schwietz in Cotabato to learn about the people and issues there. Catholic Relief Services facilitated the partnership.
Menting said Earth Friendly Coffee Company offered a simple way for her to raise money for the archdiocese’s solidarity partnership while selling gourmet coffee that ensures coffee laborers can make a living.
"It’s not just, ‘Let’s make some money and forget about the world.’ With this, we’re going to help other people as well as help ourselves," Menting said. And, it’s good coffee, she added.
Earth Friendly Coffee Company is one of 14 retailers nationwide sought out by Catholic Relief Services to expand the fair trade market to U.S. consumers. The retailers return a portion of their sales to the agency’s fair-trade fund.
By ordering fair-trade coffee from retailers closer to home, transportation and shipping costs are curbed and consumers can support local businesses.
"It’s no-brainer for Catholics," Hughes explained. "The consumer wins, the church wins, Catholic Relief Services wins, our earth wins. Even the parishioner that is too busy to get involved in anything, they can walk by and pick up a pound of coffee. They’re not making a sacrifice to get behind the right thing in life."
The parishes and the global solidarity partnership are selling coffee in their churches and online at www.earthfriendlycoffee.com/shop.htm.