October was Fair Trade month at the Mustard Seed and what a success it was! Thank you for coming in and supporting us. It was wonderful to see everyone in the store, enjoying samples of Fair Trade chocolate and jams and learning about where our products come from and who the proceeds benefit. Please come by and see how the store has transformed! One of the forty plus volunteers would be happy to share with you the stories of our precious gifts.
We kicked off the month with a focus on Kidknits and Kenana Knitter Critters. I wanted to take a closer look at both organizations and share with you the uplifting stories.
KidKnits was the brainchild of a 9 year old girl, named Ellie. As Ellie learned about poverty around the globe, she felt a strong urge to help. Ellie heard about a group of women in Rwanda who could provide handmade yarn and proposed buying the yarn for kits to make hats. This idea became a fair trade plan and KidKnits came into being. KidKnits– kits for kids to knit hats. (Say that five times fast)!
As these kits began to sell, and the idea of KidKnits took off, the group started to buy yarn from another woman in Chile. KidKnits continues to grow as the awareness and support increases. Through the fair trade import of handmade yarn from Rwanda and Chile, KidKnits is able to support local employment for impoverished women in developing countries. Kenana Knitter Critters has a similar story of success.
Kenana Knitter Critters was formed with the social aim of giving much needed income to local families in Kenya by creating more work for women. (Unemployment here runs 60-80%). In the farming community of Njoro, agricultural work is easier for the men to come by, leaving most women without a way to financially contribute to their families. On the Kenana Farm, and now all neighboring farms as the demand grows, a group of Kenyan women gather wool. They wash, dye with all natural plant dyes and mothproof all the wool. (These women mothproof with Pyrethrum – Chrysanthemum, or Daisy). Once the wool is treated, it is then spun on old recycled bicycle wheels, to become the yarn used to create the Fair Trade, sustainable and Eco-friendly products called Kenana Knitter Critters.
Starting with just a few women, the group has grown into over 300 knitters and 400 spinners. With support of their products, there has been a health facility built on the farm and each woman can pay for her child/children to go to school. There are more great stories of companies that support fair trade and the communities within our much larger, Global community. By purchasing a gift at the Mustard Seed, your gift gives on and on. Stay tuned for more to come!
