Florida-Bahamas Synod

Your congregation host a Fair Trade display? Jacob Schmalzle, director of Village Markets, a worldwide Lutheran Fair Trade mission, will be happy to show you how!

In response to the most recent Synod Assembly’s resolution on Fair Trade, urging congregations to purchase and use products that reflect the justice values of the gospel, Pastor Nathan Swenson-Reinhold of St. Stephen in Longwood has created a YouTube video of the congregation’s Fair Trade Display at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_XZ_wl-JTw

At no cost, Village Markets sends congregations everything they need to host a display. Village Markets handle all of the sales and restocking of products and returns 20% of sales to support the congregation’s local outreach.

Village Markets is a fair trade business developing Christian partnerships between concerned consumers in North America and artisan cooperatives of the Lutheran Church in Kenya, both working for global economic justice. For concerned consumers in North America, it means making responsible purchase choices that directly benefit the sustainable development of artisan cooperatives, where women and children are safeguarded, where there is the environmentally friendly use of natural resources, and where a significant portion of every purchase price is returned to strengthen the local artisan’s cooperative and liberate them from poverty. For artisans, it means the appropriate sustainable development of their community-based cooperatives by eliminating exploitive middlemen, providing job training and micro credit loans, ensuring the sustainable use of natural resources, helping accommodate changing market trends, and providing a realistic way to bring their families out of poverty.

Through the partnership between Village Markets and the Lutheran Church in Kenya, the artisan cooperatives are provided conscientious managers, fiscal responsibility, and a Christian vision of service to society, working for sustainable development and global economic justice.

Through their North American representative, Jacob Schmalzle, Village Markets offers hand-crafted Fair Trade gifts that empower concerned consumers with alternative ways to shop that empower, rather than exploit, those who are in need.

To find out more go to www.villagemarkets.org or www.facebook.com/vmafairtrade or contact Jacob Schmalzle at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.