The aisle less taken

from the Worcester Telegram

Fair trade gifts capture holiday spirit for shoppers

By Jean Laquidara Hill TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF

There are as many options for gift giving this season as there are philosophies about shopping.

While some are comfortable buying gifts from department stores and online retailers, others have personal and political reasons for preferring less popular venues.

A shortage of expendable cash is one reason Donna Nothe-Choiniere of Hubbardston rarely shops at department stores. Fortunately for her, handmade gifts and shopping in surplus and second-hand stores better fit her philosophy that it is the amount of time, not money, that makes a gift most meaningful.

She pays attention to the interests and needs of the people in her life all year round, plotting to find or make them each something personal for the holidays, whether the ideal gift is something she finds at a fair in the summer and hides until December, or spins and knits herself.

Her husband, Joseph, and their adult sons, Jonah and Ethan, are accustomed to unique gifts from shops, and scarves and vests hand-knitted of handspun yarn from the Choinieres’ sheep and angora rabbits.

“Our first Christmas together, he bartered for a spinning wheel (for a gift for Donna) and I bartered with a woman for yarn to knit him a sweater,” said Mrs. Choiniere. One year, she said, she bartered with a poet, trading a shawl she made for a poem for her husband.

Little has changed over the many years the Choinieres have been together.

“I bartered two Romney (sheep) fleeces for two Shetland (sheep) fleeces, so someone is getting a gift from a Shetland fleece this year,” said Mrs. Choiniere.

Even if money were plentiful, said Mrs. Chioniere, she would avoid discount chain stores and shop in locally owned places to help their owners stay in business and to preserve their uniqueness.

To the Rev. Robert Duebber, pastor of the First Congregational Church in Westminster, the perfect gift serves two purposes — making the recipient happy and helping people in dire circumstances.

The church usually holds a fall sale offering fair trade merchandise to the community. The merchandise, which the church usually buys through A Greater Gift of SERRV International, consists of items made by craftspeople worldwide who are paid a fair wage for their products. Founded in 1949 and originally named the Sales Exchange for Refugees Rehabilitation and Vocation, the nonprofit organization SERRV International has long outgrown its name by expanding its training and fair trade marketing and distribution assistance to craftspeople and farmers in many developing countries.

The church sale also introduces purchasers to A Greater Gift, a nonprofit fair trade company that helps train artisans and pays part of the purchase price for items when placing orders so artisans can buy or raise the raw materials they need. The company abides by the International Fair Trade Association Code of Practice, a spokeswoman said.

Fair trade clothing and food such as coffee, tea and chocolate sold in this country sometimes bears a Fair Trade Certified label.

Beginning last year, said Rev. Duebber, the Women’s Fellowship expanded its fair trade sales to include Beads for Life, which are necklaces, bracelets and other beads made from used magazines, as it is doing again Dec. 9.

“They’re beautiful beads. They’re a lovely, lovely gift,” said Rev. Duebber, who has bought some for friends.

The colorful beads that look like hand-painted gems were first brought to the church through Women’s Fellowship Treasurer Sandra M. Thibodeau, who read about them in a magazine. She learned that women of war-torn Uganda, whose sons and husbands had been killed in the 19-year civil war, make the beads and string them into bracelets and necklaces to pay for food and, in the most successful cases, for their children to go to school.

A nonprofit agency purchases the beads and sells them on behalf of the Ugandan women.

“It’s just heartwarming,” said Mrs. Thibodeau. “The beads are just beautiful and you’d never believe they’re made out of slivers of magazines.”

Melinda B. Miller of Gardner has spread Beads for Life shopping to Sterling, where she teaches at Houghton Elementary School.

“I had worn a couple pieces last year and (teachers) said, ‘Oh, I love them,’ ” Ms. Miller said.

She purchased some of the jewelry with help from Mrs. Thibodeau last spring, and sold more than $1,000 worth at the school.

The bracelets, necklaces and earrings sell for $5 to $30.

This week, she set up shop at the school again because school staff members want to shop between classes for Christmas and other occasions. Ms. Miller said she feels particularly good about the bead sales because she knows a local child who was adopted from Africa, and has learned of the poverty and deprivation there.

“It hits home,” she said.

The Flatt family of Princeton is well-acquainted with fair trade shopping. As shoppers crowded into malls the day after Thanksgiving, the Flatts shopped at Heifer International’s Overlook Farm gift shop in Rutland.

“I think when you say fair trade it’s more important to think of the other side, that it’s not unfair,” said Ann E. Flatt.

Her husband, J.P. Flatt, said that when he shops he always thinks about whether the worker was fairly paid for what he is buying.

Mr. Flatt said he shops international fair trade and also buys from producers who make and sell their own products locally, rather than purchasing mass-produced gifts from department stores. “Local is more likely to be fair trade,” he said.

“We give our family members certificates for flocks of animals,” Mr. Flatt said, referring to the Heifer Project. The Heifer Project sells certificates starting at $20 to provide a starter flock of animals to a poor family, such as chickens for eggs and meat.

Mr. Flatt’s daughter, Carine F. Newberry, formerly of Princeton and now of Oakton, Va., said she gives Heifer Project certificates to her children’s teachers as gifts, showing them the livestock purchased in their names.

In addition to supporting her belief in fair trade, Mrs. Newberry said she enjoys purchasing handmade items because she understands the personal work that goes into them. “I feel a connection to these workers,” she said.

Tom Tompsen, director of International Students and Scholars at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, said he likes the personal feeling of buying handcrafted gifts from a fair trade organization, which he describes as one that has cut out much of the corporate middleman and has paid a fair wage to the crafter.

For the third consecutive year, WPI is hosting a fair trade sale from fair trade gift retailer Ten Thousand Villages. Usually, said Mr. Tompsen, the sale is held earlier in the fall, but this year it is being held in December to give it more of a holiday feel. The sale will be at the Campus Center Lobby at WPI, 100 Institute Road, Worcester.

Where you can find local
fair trade shopping

• Heifer International’s Overlook Farm Gift Shop, 216 Wachusett St., Rutland. The shop sells musical instruments, gloves, hats, home decor, cards, music, chocolate and more from this country and far beyond. Shop hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays and noon to 5 p.m. Sundays.

• The Women’s Fellowship of First Congregational Church of Westminister will sell Beads for Life after the 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. services Dec. 9 at the church, 138 Main St., Westminister.

• The International Student Council of WPI will sponsor a sale from Ten Thousand Villages, a fair trade gift retailer, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Dec. 3 through Dec 7 in the Campus Center lobby at WPI, 100 Institute Road, Worcester.

Where you can find online
fair trade shopping

TransFair USA www.transfairusa.org/content/WhereToBuy/
Global Exchange's Holiday Gift Section http://store.gxonlinestore.org/holiday.html
Fair Trade Federation
Lists mail order and online catalogs for fair trade products at www.fairtradefederation.org/ht/d/Memdir/pid/1722
SERVV International www.agreatergift.org/Default.aspx
World of Good
www.world-of-good.com/catalog/index.php
Ten Thousand Villages www.tenthousandvillages.com
Equal Exchange
http://eeretail.stores.yahoo.net/