Events
                         Justice & Witness Commission
     of the Kansas Oklahoma Conference
To Learn More about Fair Trade, check out Green America's newest guide to Fair Trade.
 
Stay tuned for Upcoming Fair Trade Opportunities!
Are you plannning a Fair Trade Effort -- contact us to help you spread the word at joshuamer@hotmail.com 
2010 Efforts in Oklahoma:
 
Tulsa: 
Ongoing
Fellowship Congregational Church
Sundays from 10-12 am
 
Community of Hope, UCC
Sundays from 6 - 8 pm
 
Mayflower, UCC OKC
M-S ~ Fellowship area 24/7
 
Upcoming:
 
Langston University
II Annual Social Justice Conference
Fair Trade Products and Presentation (9-3pm)
Community of Hope, UCC ~ Nicaragua Store
Open from M-F 10 -2 pm
and Sunday 6-7pm
 
Nicaragua Summmit (DATE TBD)
Wine to Water Fundraising Event
OSU, Langston, Community Health Connection visits
 
November @ Fellowship Congregational Church, UCC
2900 S. Harvard Ave.(918) 747-777
 10th Annual  INTERNATIONAL GIFT FAIR
Saturday, Sunday 
 
Oklahoma City
Oklahoma City’s Fall Peace Festival
from 11 am to 4:30 pm, in the downtown Civic Center Hall of Mirrors
201 N. Walker Ave
Peace Fest
10:00-4:00
 
Click here to see listing of Ten Thousand Villages sales in Oklahoma
 
 
2010 Efforts in Kansas
 
Great Bend - Read below!
Click here to see listing of Ten Thousand Villages fesitvals in Kansas.
 
Hutchinson, Newton and Overland Park have year round Ten Thousand Villages Fair Trade Stores.  Click here to learn more. 
 
Saturday, November 6, is the All Church Bazaar where people can buy home made items, crafts as well as lunch. This marks the beginning of the Christmas season.
 
The First Congregational United Church of Christ and the First Presbyterian Church in Great Bend are joining efforts for a Fair Trade Market booth at the All church Bazaar. This will include coffee, chocolate, crafts from all over the world for sale.  This year a basket of Fair Trade items will be included in a raffle on the day of the Bazaar.
 
The week after the All Church Bazaar, the Fair Trade Market will be set up at R.B. Teller located on Main Street Great Bend, from Wednesday, November 10 through Saturday, November 13.
 
The downtown space is generously donated each year by the My Town organization. They even include the Fair Trade Market in some of their advertising. The two Great Bend churches partner with SERRV and Equal Exchange for all of the items.
 
This downtown sale will be open the same hours as the local stores.  Church members donate time to work the sale and help to educate customers about the idea of Fair Trade. A new idea this year is to have a door prize that will be drawn at the end of our sale. Each person who attends our sale will receive a chance to enter. We thought this would bring people to see the door prize. We will have more stories of how Fair Trade helps people all over the world to gain a better life with the chance to earn money for themselves and their community.
 
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History of the Global Market @ Fellowship Congregational Church, UCC ~ Tulsa, Ok
Before the idea of the Global Market was born, a small group of members concerned about economic justice reacted to the first “God Is Still Speaking” T-shirts. The shirts had been printed on Hanes shirts which the group knew used “sweat shop labor.” They phoned and wrote letters to the National Office to discuss their concerns about the T-shirts. After much discussion locally and nationally, we were able to buy T-shirts from fair wage sources. Many in the Congregation had not heard of fair trade, and a dialog sermon between a member of the fledging group and a member for Awareness was presented. This group was the beginning of the Economic Justice Committee.
 
At the same time, two other similar events were happening. Shannon Howard was developing a mission in Nicaragua. She was returning to the USA with handicrafts that had been made there and purchased at a fair price for sale here. This developed into Esperanza Èn Acción.

The second inspiration for the Global Market was a result of members of our Church going on the Community of Hope’s mission trips to Nicaragua. They were struck by the meager life of the people there. Besides the mission trips, they became aware that if the people could get a fair wage for their work, their living standard would be much improved.

One of the returning members, Debra Salazar, was awed by and dedicated to help Nicaraguans she met. As a result she made arrangements to sell fair trade coffee in our Narthex every Sunday. One zealot, me, was bothered by the selling of things in the Narthex. Both Debra and I were on the Board of Outreach. When Debra made her proposal, I objected. Not because I was against the selling of fair trade coffee but because I was against the exchange of money in our sanctuary. After some discussion, Karen Spradlin mentioned the idea of a church store.

My father always told me that the person who sees a problem should be the one to help find a solution. Thus we began working with the Board of Outreach and Cabinet to create a place that would sell Debra’s coffee, Shannon’s Esperanza, and Awareness items. The Board of Christian Education made a wonderful offer. After the renovation of the Education and Administration Building was completed, one of the classrooms they didn’t need at the time was offered for the church store. It was approved by Trustees and Cabinet. The Board of Outreach appoints the chair of the Economic Justice Committee which oversees the church store.   Nancy Eggen worked hard to find other fair trade products for the Global Market and International Gift Fair, and more recently JoAnn Huff has taken over the buying for the Market.

The Congregation then went through a process of selecting a name for the church store. This was intended to help the church feel ownership of the store. The store was named the Global Market and opened August 31, 2003 with sales of $266.15. The total sales as of March 2010 since opening day are over $107,717. We are thankful to the members of the Congregation for their continued support.

—Rich Curby