Brattleboro, VT Declared the 2nd Fair Trade Town in the U.S.
Published June 29, 2007 @ 12:52PM PT
The Fair Trade Brattleboro Resolution was approved at the Selectboard Meeting this evening, making Brattleboro, Vermont the First Fair Trade Town in New England & the second in the nation!
We are thrilled to announce that the majority of the Brattleboro Selectboard voted to support the Resolution, a proclamation developed by the Brattleboro Fair Trade Steering Committee. This fulfills the final criteria for officially becoming a Fair Trade Town, set forth by the UK Fairtrade Federation.
The community is invited to join the Fair Trade Brattleboro Steering Committee and allies to celebrate this exciting declaration! We will gather Tuesday, July 10th, from 6:30-8:30 at the restaurant 39 Main, located in downtown Brattleboro. Stay tuned for details!
Since the Third Annual Muna Fest Fair Trade Festival, held December 2nd, AYLLU Inc (a 501c3 organization based in Brattleboro) has initiated to certify Brattleboro as a Fair Trade Town. Currently, the only other Fair Trade Town in the U.S. is Media, PA, which will celebrate it’s one year anniversary of having Fair Trade Status on July 14th. On April 11th, the second town in North America, Wolfville, Nova Scotia, became Fair Trade as well. Many other towns in the U.S. are working to gain Fair Trade status, including our neighbors in Western Massachusetts, Northampton and Amherst.
The Fair Trade Towns movement began in the UK, in 2000, and currently there are over 250 towns in Western Europe that are considered Fair Trade. The criteria set forth by the Fairtrade Federation based in Europe includes five main items that a town must meet, such as a minimum number of businesses that offer Fair Trade products for sale, educational events, to have formed a steering committee that meets on regular basis, to have had a significant amount of media coverage, and for the town council to pass a Resolution.
Fair Trade Brattleboro values buying locally produced goods, and we encourage everyone to purchase Fair Trade products when consuming products that are only grown in the Southern Hemisphere, mainly by farmers living in extreme poverty. We ask you to ‘Buy Local & Buy Fair’.
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