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Reverse Trick-or-Treating with Global Exchange
Posted on Wed, October 01, 2008 by Jerusha Klemperer
6 Comments | Categories: Events, Food Justice, Take Action,
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by Slow Food USA staffer Julia De Martini Day
What will you be eating this Halloween? Is your candy Good, Clean, and Fair?
Slow Food USA has partnered with Global Exchange to spread the word about where our chocolate comes from on Halloween night with Reverse Trick-or-Treating. Last Halloween, thousands of children, students, parents and others gave Fair Trade chocolate BACK to the households who gave them candy while Trick-or-Treating. This year, we hope to reach a quarter of a million households across the country in an effort to further awareness about where our food comes from and how it is produced.
While Fair Trade does not address all hardships faced by farmers abroad, its goals are to provide a better price and support sustainable agricultural development. A good resource for reading more about Fair Trade is on the Fair Trade Federation website.
How Reverse Trick-or-Treating Works: The chocolate is attached to a card with information about social and environmental justice issues in the cocoa industry and how buying Fair Trade certified chocolate provides a solution. When someone gives you candy while trick-or-treating, you simply hand them a chocolate and card back. Reverse Trick-or-Treating chocolate and cards are free. Participants pay only the cost of postage. Visit the Reverse Trick-or-Treating website to request cards and chocolate. The deadline to request cards is October 13.
Slow Food USA has sent notices to all Slow Food USA chapter leaders about participating in this program to distribute fair trade chocolate in their communities on Halloween night, but we have heard some dissent about this program. We pose the question to Slow Food USA members, leaders, and blog readers – what are your thoughts about Fair Trade? What has your experience with it been? What are your suggestions for how farmers of chocolate, coffee, and other items can be paid a better price? Please post a comment and get the dialogue going.
Member Comments
From Frances C. Monroe on Fri, October 03, 2008
The link to request reverse trick or treat cards and chocolate is not working.
From Editor on Fri, October 03, 2008
Thanks for letting us know, Frances. This has been fixed.
From Adlai on Wed, October 08, 2008
As costumed children fill the streets for another year of Halloween sweets, thousands of children across 299 cities in the US and Canada are turning this traditional Halloween ritual on its head; this year, it’s the kids handing out the chocolate! Reversing the trick or treat model these young people will be giving away tens of thousands of samples of Fair Trade Certified dark chocolate to address the persistent problems of chronic poverty in cocoa-growing communities, abysmal working conditions, and the use of exploited child labor in the Ivory Coast which produces 40% of the world’s cocoa.
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Adlai
From Integrative Nutrition on Wed, October 08, 2008
This is a wonderful project to promote this month. The link is still not working, FYI.
From Jack Still on Mon, October 13, 2008
I found this interesting. There is a similar story about the mystery in what seems to be a fun treat on http://www.slothbob.com
From Lisa P on Sat, November 29, 2008
Halloween was the best time of the year when I was a kid. There were not many things I looked forward to more than Halloween trick-or-treating. My sweet tooth knew no limits when it came to that all-day-and-night candy bacchanalia. Everywhere you turned, you?d find strange-looking creatures, big and small, harvesting different candies from every corner to collect the most sweet, tasty pieces of jewels. I do not exaggerate when I said I had a sweet tooth. If the world was made of chocolate, I swear, I would?ve munched it flat. My Halloween routine, however, had nothing on the Trick-or-Treater?s coding system these folks in Sacramento, California created. Kids would leave codes for each other at the foot of the driveway telling the other kids everything from ?no one home,? ?full-size candy bars,? and even ?mean dogs.? Every kid knew the chalk-marking system, saving a whole lot of trouble for each other. They?ve made Trick-or-Treating more convenient with these clear signals. I wish the families who, during my time, were facing some temporarily rough financial times, would?ve considered timely personal loans to help them score some good chocolates and candy bars. They are affordable and easy to pay back over time. As a matter of fact, they would have paid off their loan by the time I finished all the candy in my bag ? and I went through it quick! Thanks for the easy personal loans, no worries for us anymore when Halloween comes. We have lots of candies and chocolates to eat! Read more on Short Term Installment Loans.
