Fair Trade Gifts

With Seven Hopes United coming into her second year I am caught up in thoughts of her beginnings. Sitting with a small group of friends after a trip around Central America, excited about new possibilities and ideas. It was in a room of supportive friends that the idea of Seven Hopes United became a reality.

Over the past year Seven Hopes United went from two dreamers on a mission to make a difference, a few artisans with a world full of hope, and a handful of faithful friends to something new. It is here that we stand at the cusp of the next step…thankful for the new friends that have joined our journey.

Seven Hopes United's Founders and {Co-Dreamers} in Nicaragua

This dream inspires me to wake up in the morning. This collaboration of artists and dreamers has brought people from all over the world together with a common hope – to lift millions of families out of poverty by providing a means to a living wage.

We are overwhelmed by all of the new people that have learned about Seven Hopes United in the last year and we are glad that you have joined this unfolding story. In celebrating our birthday, and this influx of new friends we realized it would be a good time to take a moment to share our mission and bring everyone up to speed. It will also be a good reminder of how far we’ve come for those of you who have been a part of this story of hope from the beginning.

Who we are…
Seven Hopes United is a cause-centered collaboration that is working to eradicate poverty by providing economic opportunities for artisans in disadvantaged areas of the globe. We currently partner with nearly 40 Fair Trade cooperatives around the world to fulfill our mission – to empower communities and enrich the lives of disadvantaged men, women and children around the globe.

“Our life has been difficult, but our children will have a better future, thanks to the people like you who buy our jewelry.” – Olga and Cesar, Guatamala.

Our fair trade partnerships provide living wages to our producers, and offer alternatives to the poor working conditions and low wages common in developing countries. More than beautiful fair trade products, each Seven Hopes United necklace, apron, handbag… has a story. A story that will become your own as you grow closer to our artisans and learn about the effort that goes into hand-making each of these gorgeous pieces.

How to get involved…
Support our Fair Trade artisans. Shop Fair Trade.
Create a Fair Trade Wedding or Gift Registry
Email us your kind words & inspiration
Share our story

Where to find our products…
www.SevenHopesUnited.com

Westfield UTC
4545 La Jolla Village Dr.
San Diego, CA 92122 (Outside of the Gap & Lucky Jeans)

…and an increasing list of Farmers Markets and Gift Fairs in the San Diego area (“Like” our Facebook page for up-to-date info on events near you!)

Follow along…
Our Facebook page
Our Twitter page

Thank you SO much for your continued support! Two was a great year, we are looking forward to celebrating many more with you! Happy Birthday Seven Hopes United!!

We hope you are enjoying this holiday with some barbecue in hand and fireworks in your near future because that is just what we have in the works for this 4th of July evening. The Seven Hopes United team has been so busy the past few weeks, getting ready for our Grand Opening at the Westfield UTC Mall in San Diego, CA.

Starting July 2nd, you can find a whole slew of Fair Trade gifts at our pop-up boutique Monday-Friday 10am-9pm, Saturday 10am-8pm, and Sunday 11am-7pm. Look out for some uber-cute photos coming your way soon! We are located just past Pottery Barn and Anthropologie. And don’t forget to shop our Summer Sale for amazing deals on fair trade jewelry, handbags, kids clothing, baskets, and more! + receive an additional 10% off when you shop today, use the discount code JUL411 at checkout!

Every-Bunny Loves Fair Trade Chocolate

In the United States, Easter is a major chocolate buying holiday, and an excellent opportunity to show your support for Fair Trade. In fact, more chocolate is sold in the US at Easter than any other time of the year, second only to Halloween.

Why is buying fair trade chocolate important? Right now, the African Ivory Coast is the source of 75% of America’s chocolate. There are over 600,000 cocoa farms in Ivory Coast that are very poor. The U.S. State Department estimates that over 15,000 child-slaves work on plantations in the Ivory Coast alone. They have been kidnapped or sold by their parents to work from age 8 and on, cutting cocoa pods from trees and processing them, often at the end of a whip.

In other countries of West Africa, some other 269,000 children work with machetes and deadly chemicals, applying pesticides and fungicides to trees without wearing protective garments and without proper training. These children are required to work in slave-like conditions, beaten regularly, and are forced to work over 12-hour days. There is limited or no schooling available to them and once at the farms, they are unable to leave. Amazingly, some of the cocoa used in popular confections – the chocolate you eat every day – is grown and harvested under such conditions.

The chocolate industry claims to have no involvement in the wage slavery and child slavery practices occurring in the Ivory Coast nation. However, 70% of their cocoa comes from the Ivory Coast and they’ve made no moves to procure fair trade cocoa sources. Here is a breakdown of the path traveled: The cocoa is grown on small cocoa plantations. Ivory Coast middle-men purchase the cocoa at a pittance, then sell it to the four corporate exporting companies: Cargill, Archer-Daniels Midland, Barry Callbaut, and Saf-Cacao. These four exporters then turn around and sell the cocoa to the many name-brand chocolate-producing companies we all know so well.

Fair Trade certification guarantees that you are not an unwilling participant of this very inhumane practice. Fair Trade Certified cocoa only comes from certified farmers’ cooperatives, organized to strengthen their farmer-members economically so they can provide for their families and educate their children. Fair Trade certification is a guarantee to processors, handlers, retailers and consumers, that the cocoa beans used in this chocolate were produced in a way that does no social harm.

Use this opportunity to send a letter to large chocolate corporations, on behalf of workers and children on cocoa farms in West Africa, asking them to start sourcing fair trade chocolate for their confections. You can also make this an educational Easter activity for your kids or Sunday school class – have them color a picture to send to Hershey’s with a hand-written note asking them to stop sourcing chocolate that uses forced child labor. Or use this coloring page created by the “Raise the Bar, Hershey!” Campaign.

Send it to:
The Hershey Company
Attn: David West, CEO
100 Crystal A Drive
Hershey, PA 17003

Increase the demand for fair trade chocolate by buying from companies that are already committed to using fair trade ingredients in their chocolate. You can choose from two of our favorite fair trade chocolate bars, classic Milk Chocolate and White Chocolate With Strawberries, from our Fair Trade certified partners Divine Chocolate, on the Seven Hopes United online fair trade store.

Here are some quotes to honor those who have inspired me, who have taught me to believe in social justice, to dream BIG, and who continue to bring me back to the heart of making the world more beautiful with their courage! These people are my super heros!

At the end of the meeting/at the end of the day/at the end of my life, I want to be able to say, “I contributed to making the world a better place.” – Ashley Shilts, Co-Founder of Seven Hopes United

Quotations about Giving Back, Compassion, and Kindness

If you think you are too small to be effective, you have never been in bed with a mosquito.
-Betty Reese

You must be the change you wish to see in the world.
-Mohandas Gandhi

Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention to arrive safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming: Wow!! What a ride!
-Unknown

‎Never underestimate the power of a few committed people to change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
-Margaret Meade

For beautiful eyes, look for the good in others; for beautiful lips, speak only words of kindness; and for poise, walk with the knowledge that you are never alone.
-Audrey Hepburn

Peace can only last where human rights are respected, where the people are fed, and where individuals and nations are free.
-Dalai Lama

When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace.
-J.Hendrix

I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something.
-Edwin Hale

Our fingerprints never fade from the lives we touch.
-Unknown

Everything will be ok in the end. If it’s not ok, it’s not the end.
-Unknown

Never regret. If it’s good, it’s wonderful. If it’s bad, it’s experience.
-Victoria Holt

‎To love is to BE VULNERABLE.
-C.S. Lewis

‎There is a radiance hidden in your heart that the world desperately needs.
-Captivating

Each time someone stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope.
-Robert F. Kennedy

Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.
-Helen Keller

Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
-Theodore Roosevelt

‎Often people attempt to live their lives backwards: they try to have more things, or more money, in order to do more of what they want so that they will be happier. The way it actually works is the reverse. You must first be who you really are, then do what you really need to do, in order to have what you want.
-Margaret Young

The poorest person in the world is not the one without money but one without vision.
-Ghanaian Proverb

‎I expect to pass through life but once. If therefore, there be any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow being, let me do it now, and not defer or neglect it, as I shall not pass this way again.
-William Penn

I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God who is sending a love letter to the world.
-Mother Teresa

Well-behaved women rarely make history.
-Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.
-Mother Teresa

If there is no passion in your life, then have you really lived? Find your passion, whatever it may be. Become it, and let it become you and you will find great things happen FOR you, TO you and BECAUSE of you.
-T. Alan Armstrong

Everybody can be great…because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.
-Martin Luther King, Jr.

Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.
-Edmund Burke

‎Today, give a stranger one of your smiles. It might be the only sunshine he sees all day.
-Quoted in P.S. I Love You

Life is a gift, and it offers us the privilege, opportunity, and responsibility to give something back by becoming more.
-Anthony Robbins

There are two types of people who will tell you that you cannot make a difference in this world: Those who are afraid to try themselves, and those who are afraid that you will succeed.
-Ray Goforth

‎There is no surprise more magical than the surprise of being loved. It is God’s finger on man’s shoulder.
-Charles Morgan

‎What you do today can improve all your tomorrows.
-Ralph Marston

Love doesn’t make the world go ’round. Love is what makes the ride worthwhile.
-Franklin P. Jones

Fear less, hope more, eat less, chew more, whine less, breathe more, talk less, say more, love more, and all good things will be yours.
-Swedish Proverb

‎Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.
-Mother Teresa

‎Let no feeling of discouragement prey upon you, and in the end you are sure to succeed.
-Abraham Lincoln

When nothing is sure, everything is possible.
-Margaret Drabble

If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.
-Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.
-Robert Heinlein

As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust & hostility to evaporate.
-Albert Schweitzer

‎Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.
-Mark Twain

The pillar of the world is hope.
-Kanuri proverb, Nigeria

When your values are clear to you, making decisions becomes easier.
-Roy E. Disney

It is through selfless action that we experience our own fulfillment.
-Tao Te Ching

Don’t be afraid to go where you’ve never gone and do what you’ve never done, because both are necessary to have what you’ve never had and be who you’ve never been.
-TUT

The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.
-Mohandas Gandhi

People may forget what you said. People may forget what you did. But they will never forget how you made them feel.
-Maya Angelou

‎It is through selfless action that we experience our own fulfillment.
-Tao Te Ching

Whatever you do many seem insignificant to you, but it is most important that you do it.
-Mohandas Gandhi

Women hold up half the sky, work two thirds of the world’s hours, & earn one tenth of the world’s income.
-Nicholas Kristof – Tearfund

In a gentle way, you can shake the world.
-Mohandas Gandhi

‎Your life is your message to the world. Make it inspiring.
-Lorrin L. Lee

Ethically sourced products should be be the center of any business philosophy says Seven Hopes United’s president, Ashley Shilts.

For a growing number of consumers, the desire to purchase jewelry, home decor, and gifts, is balanced by the need to act responsibly toward society and the environment–which means limiting unnecessary consumption and choosing items that are produced in a socially conscious way. For them, fair trade products are the ideal solution.

Dan Welch, co-editor of Ethical Consumer Magazine, recently noted that eco products continue to rise in popularity, bucking the consumer trend in light of the recent recession. Fair Trade gifts are among the list of eco products that topped sales charts within the last year.

Now more than ever, consumers of all backgrounds are seeking out the value behind the products they purchase. Today, how products are sourced, manufactured, packaged, and shipped all affect consumer spending. This new consciousness is not confined to younger generations; over half of Baby Boomers consider themselves socially conscious shoppers.

The trend in ethical shopping is expected to increase as more and more socially conscious businesses join the market, and consumers continue to look for products that are at once, “pesticide free” “fair trade” and “sustainably harvested.”