We’re thrilled to announce our new relationship with Guayakí and the introduction of their fabulous certified-organic, rainforest-grown Yerba Maté beverages to our product line-up. Our new alliance is particularly inspiring because Café Campesino and Guayakí share the same deep commitment to sustainable trade and the vision of a better world. Further, we believe that Guayakí’s yerba maté drinks are not only a fantastic complement to our line up of 100% Fair Trade, organic, shade grown coffees, but also expand Café Campesino’s reach as a Fair Trade coffee company.

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The following article was written by our very good friend and staunch Fair Trade ally Michael Sheridan of CRS. The depth of Michael’s commitment to small-scale coffee producers and their communities, 100% Fair Trade coffee companies like Café Campesino, and the Fair Trade movement is nothing short of inspiring. We are truly grateful to Michael and CRS for their extraordinary support and leadership. 

Michael organized and led the recent CRS Delegation to Nicaragua of which Tripp was a member. We asked Michael to write this piece to give our readers a better understanding of CRS’s approach to Fair Trade, an approach that we believe has and continues to have an immensely positive impact on our work as a 100% Fair Trade coffee company. 

CRS stands for Catholic Relief Services, the official relief and development agency of the U.S. Catholic community. At CRS, we have served poor and marginalized people overseas since 1943 through humanitarian relief and community development programs. But we also serve Catholics in the United States by helping them to live in solidarity with the people we serve around the world. We believe that when we come together as one human family, we have the power to change the world. And that’s why we are so excited about our partnerships with companies like Café Campesino — because they are helping us to use the market to build direct and mutually beneficial relationships between conscious consumers in the United States and disadvantaged farmers overseas in places like Nicaragua, where we support more than 400 small-scale farmers.

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On the morning of March 11th, Lee will be in Decatur, Georgia, participating in Georgia Organics' Organic & Community Gardening Workshop while also serving up Café Campesino and talking Fair Trade with this dedicated group of organic advocates. Georgia Organics and the Atlanta Community Gardens Coalition have brought together a panel of farmers and community gardeners for this workshop to show how we and your neighbors grow your own organic food and garden. For more information, visit www.georgiaorganics.org.

Word has it that Bill is quite the busy Fair Trader down in Xela, Guatemala! He returns on March 16th so stay tuned for his trip report in the April edition of Fair Grounds.

On March 20th, Tripp is traveling up to the University of Georgia’s Catholic Center in Athens to address the Faith and Justice Committee, which is sponsoring a Lenten series on solidarity with the poor. Included in the series’ curriculum is the issue of trade and how consumers’ appetites for everything from coffee to inexpensive clothes impact producers in developing countries. Tripp will talk about Fair Trade and discuss how Café Campesino is working to make a tangible difference in the lives of our producer partners, their families, and their communities. He’s getting pretty good at that pitch, as you can imagine. (By the way, it’s just a coincidence that Tripp is talking to a Catholic group on the heels of his Catholic Relief Services trip. Café Campesino doesn’t have a special relationship with any particular denomination. We’ll speak to anyone who wants to talk Fair Trade!)

April is shaping up to be a particularly busy month, so we’re planning to get our caffeine buzz on! On April 3rd, our producer partners from Peru and Colombia will be visiting us here in Americus. On the heels of our producer partner visit, Tripp and Bill will head up to Charlotte, North Carolina, for the annual SCAA (Specialty Coffee Association of America) conference and a special meeting of Cooperative Coffees (more about that in next month’s Fair Grounds). 

And, finally, during the weekend of April 28-30, Café Campesino will once again be serving up Fair Trade coffee to our longstanding friends at BRAG for the annual Bicycle Ride Across Georgia's Spring Tune-Up Ride in Madison, Georgia. For more info, visit www.brag.org.

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— Mahatma Gandhi

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• February 2006 True Love is Café Campesino, Café Campesino Honored at GA Sustainable Business Day, Call to Action: Bioneers
• December 2005 Celebrating a Great Fair Trade Year, Fair Trade Partner: Café Conciencia, Fair Trade Partner: No Sweat Apparel
• November 2005 Gearing Up For the Holiday Season, Café Campesino Community Caravan, Show Your Café Campesino Pride and Win!, Return of the Monarch Butterfly
• October 2005 Hurricane Stan Ravages Our Guatemalan Friends, Report From the Fair Trade Futures Conference, Customer Spotlight: Sobornost for the World Foundation's World Village Fair Trade Market, Fair Trade Partner: Maya Tech Learning Centers
• September 2005 Cooperative Coffees and Producers Meet in Guatamala by Tripp Pomeroy, Café Campesino's General ManagerSupport OXFAM - Support Fair Trade, Customer Spotlight: Rainbow Natural Grocery, Fair Trade Partner: A Different Approach
• August 2005 Producer Profile: Fondo Paez, Customer Spotlight: Apoteca, Fair Trade Partner: Pachamama, A World of Artisans
• July 2005 Harrar Joins Our Coffee Lineup, Producer Profile: Ethiopia's OCFCU, Fair Trade on the Home Front
• June 2005 Sumatra Update: June 2005 provided by Thomas Fricke, ForesTrade, National Fair Trade Conference, Fair Trade Partner: Three Frontiers Trading Co.
• May 2005 Producer Profile: ACMPASA Santa Anita, Top 10 Ways to Support Fair Trade, Customer Spotlight: Crimson Moon Café, Fair Trade Partner: Fair Trade Resource Network
• April 2005 An Eye-Opening Trip to Guatemala by Bill Harris, Catholic Relief Services Fair Trade Coffee Program, Manna Grocery and Deli, La Esmeralda Stove Project
• March 2005 Insights From Our Guatemala Producer Partners by Tripp Pomeroy, Take Us To Your Coffeehouse!, Customer Spotlight: The Sentient Bean, Fair Trade Partner: Mexico Solidarity Network
• February 2005 Meeting Our Guatemala Partners Face to Face, Producer Profile: APECAFORM, Customer Spotlight: Mayflower Coffee Company, Fair Trade Partner: CoffeeTradeJustice.com
• January 2005 Tragedy's Wake: Update From Sumatra, Producer Profile: PPKGO Cooperative
• December 2004 Mexico: Notes From the Field, Customer Spotlight: Ten Thousand Villages, Fair Trade Partner: Cloudforest Initiatives
• November 2004 Conscious Consumption: A Personal Perspective, Customer Spotlight: Oyamel - Cocina Mexicana, Fair Trade Partner: Three Frontiers Trading Co.
• October 2004 A Mission...Not a Market: The 2004 Vote: Making it Work
• September 2004 Producer News: CECOCAFEN in the Off Season, Customer Spotlight: The Healthy Gourmet
• August 2004 Producer Profile: Cooperativa Café Timor, Fair Trade Friends: Marketplace of India
• July 2004 A Fair Trade Reality Check, Fair Trade Friends: Tribal Fiber, Coffee Lab International
• June 2004 The Promise of Fair Trade, Fair Trade Friend: Global Crafts
• May 2004 Fair Trade at the Carter Center, SCAA meeting.
• April 2004 Coffee and Community in Nicaragua, Fair Trade in Americus Makes the News!
• March 2004 Fair Trade chocolate, Rosetta's Kitchen
• February 2004 Bill's Return to Guatemala, Guayakí Rainforest
• January 2004 Espresso - What's the Buzz?
• December 2003 Fair Trade: Global Exchange's Fair Trade Challenge; Fellow Fair Traders: SERRV International
• November 2003 Fair Trade: More Than Just a Fair Price; Fellow Fair Traders: Lucuma Designs
• October 2003 Exploring the Coffee Regions
• September 2003 Cooperative Coffees Annual Meeting
• August 2003 Fair Trade Friends: Oxfam America; The Art (and Science) of Roasting Coffee
• July 2003 Exploring Our Origins: Sumatra
• June 2003 Exploring Our Origins: Guatemala; Gayo Mountain Adventure; Dr. Coffee - Cupping
• May 2003 Fair Trade Friends: United Students for Fair Trade; World Fair Trade Day
• April 2003 Exploring Our Origins: Ethiopia; Celebrating Earth Day with Fair Trade
• March 2003 Bill's Central American Adventures, Part 2; SWP Decaffeination
• February 2002 Bill's Central American Adventures, Part 1
• January 2003 My Life as a Bean
• December 2002 Exploring Our Origins: East Timor; Sustainable Development
• November 2002 New Website; Gift Baskets
• October 2002 Interview with roaster Lee Harris
• September 2002 ForesTrade Wins UN Sustainability Award; Exploring Our Origins: Sumatra's Gayo Cooperative
• August 2002 Producer News: Shade Grown; Fair Trade Friends: Atlanta Audubon
• July 2002 Exploring Our Origins: Colombia
• June 2002 Back Roads Journal: Cooperative Coffees and Café Campesino; Exploring Our Origins: Peru; Fair Trade Friends: Music of the Andes
• May 2002 Staff Notes: Cinco de Mayo; Producer News: Visit to Mut Viz; Back Roads Journal: SCAA Meeting
• April 2002 Back Roads Journal: Travels in Fair Trade; Customer Composting Tip