Opting for fair trade chocolate’s easier than ever, with Whole Foods and many other stores offering these eco-ethical sweets. Convincing others to choose fair trade can be tougher — but don’t despair! Fair trade organizations and companies have made becoming a fair trade activist simple this year.

From free promotion materials to small grants, fair trade advocates have a wealth of tools to help them champion their cause. Some activist ideas for your fair trade Valentines’ Day celebrations, arranged from the super easy to the more involved:

Take the Fair Trade Pledge to give only fair trade certified flowers and chocolate this Valentines Day.

Send fair trade valentines. Just request a FREE pack of cute Valentines from Global Exchange by Jan. 25! Each of the 30 valentines comes with a fair trade message and a detachable postcard to send to World’s Finest Chocolate, asking the company to start producing a Fair Trade bar.

Order a Fair Trade Valentine’s Day Action Kit. A mere $15 will have you set for the entire holiday. The kit includes that pack of 30 valentines I mentioned, a heart-box of individual chocolates (pick milk or dark), an Amore/Love Papel Picado banner, and an I Love Fair Trade Iron On, all in a red, recycled Kraft handled bag.

Join Co-op America. Sign up for a $20 membership with this nonprofit by February 14, and you’ll get a free box of Divine fair trade chocolate bars. Current members can donate $25 to get the box-o-chocos. (via Penny Nickel at Money and Values)

Contact educators about fair trade. The goal for Global Exchange’s 500 for Fair Trade National Valentine’s Day of Action is to educate at least 500 U.S. kids about fair trade this Valentines Day. To get there, GX wants you to call or email K-6 teachers and school administrators you know to ask them to teach the Fair Trade cocoa curriculum on Valentine’s Day. Get a text of an email you can copy and paste to forward on here.

Teach kids about fair trade. Are you an educator yourself? If you’re a teacher, participate by signing up here and downloading the curriculum — You'’ll be entered in a drawing to win over $75 worth of Fair Trade chocolate and educational materials!

If you want to go beyond just chocolate, check out TransFair USA’s new “Focus on Fair Trade” curriculum, which consists of three units, each focusing on a different fair trade commodity. TransFair USA says the curriculum’s “designed to meet multiple age-appropriate standards in a variety of subject and skill areas.” Try it out!

Host a Fair Trade Event. Whether you want to have a fair trade chocolate sampling or a fair trade sidewalk sale, you can get a FREE fair trade event kit with brochures, posters, and other promotional materials to help you out.

Get a grant for your fair trade event. Both TransFair USA and Americans for Informed Democracy are offering grants to help out fair trade activists this Valentines’ Day:

• TransFair USA’s offering small grants to help pay for bulk fair trade flowers at events; the org can also give you Valentine’s themed leaflets and I heart Fair Trade t-shirts. Contact Jamie Guzzi, 510-663-5260 x. 309 or email jguzzi@transfairusa.org for details.
• Americans for Informed Democracy’s offering small grants for student groups to help buy fair trade flowers and chocolate. To apply, contact Sam Schabacker, 410-962-8770 or email sam@aidemocracy.org.

So far, I’ve taken the pledge, and am feeling woeful I didn’t start planning earlier…. My current plan’s to get a Fair Trade Valentine’s Day Action Kit to take to my friend Hannah’ pre-V-day sex toy party this Saturday…. After all, every party could use more fair trade chocolate — and the postcards will be right by the bag of chocos, inviting chocoholics to read –

[crossposted on BlogHer]

Tags: fairtrade, chocolate, valentinesday, globalexchange, transfair, transfairusa

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