Under Construction...

Well, it's taken us longer to tie up all the loose ends associated with closing our Chattanooga store than we thought.

We had hoped to have the website back up and running by now, but with end-of-year taxes, job hunting, and keeping food on the table, we just haven't found the time. We liquidated so much inventory in the Chattanooga store closing sale that we're practically starting from scratch.

But we're working on it. It shouldn't be too much longer before we're ready to make sales again. Thanks for bearing with us, and stay tuned!

Greed is so last year

Good editorial on FT.com from Thom Robertson, dean of U Penn's Wharton School of Business...

link

"Business schools have an obligation to create knowledge that will enhance social and economic welfare."

Chattanooga Store Closing

After much deliberation, discussion, and sifting through advice, we've made the difficult and painful decision to close down our Chattanooga store shortly after Christmas.

We're grateful for all of our wonderful customers who have been so supportive of our little shop and our mission, and we are not technically going out of business. Will and Kim will still operate the seasonal store in Lakeside, OH, and Jency and Nathan intend to keep World Next Door alive through booths at our favorite community events like Culture Fest and Normal Palooza. We also intend to keep our online store going. We feel a strong calling to continue to represent the global poor as much as we can, and who knows -- maybe one day we will be able to reopen a Chattanooga store.

But until then, we need your help! We have lots of inventory to liquidate, so we're offering a 50% storewide discount during our last Christmas Open House, from 5PM to 9PM on Saturday, December 12. Come clean us out!And, help us celebrate our incredible 4 years of fair trade, from the time we started in 2005 with Chattanooga T-Shirts and fair trade jewelry, to 2007 when we became an exclusively fair-trade store, through today. We'll have refreshments and a fun atmosphere, plus better deals on Christmas gifts that make a difference than you'll find anywhere!

Thank you for your support over the last 4 years, and we hope to see you on Saturday night!

Gratefully,

Will & Kim Honeycutt, owners

Nathan & Jency Shirai, managers

Do We Have the Best Customers, or What?

This may be the cutest thing I've seen all year.
Remember that Halloween chocolate giveaway we did? Well, people showed up, and I had a great time ooh-ing and ah-ing at lots of really cute and creative costumes. I thought the fun ended that night, but then, this week we received an adorable thank you note from two very polite trick-or-treaters.

Here it is:

Dear World Next Door,

Thank you for the delicious fair trade chocolate bats bars. We had fun tricker treating at your store. It makes us happy that you care about all the people in World. Your store is very special and one of our favorite stores.
Thinking of you and smiling,

Sweetest Kids Ever

(OK, they aren't really called that, but they are! Don't you agree?)

Back from Nepal!

Well, I returned from Nepal on October 29 and hit the ground running- end of GPS' Robin Hood, fair trade home parties, Normal Palooza- it's been a busy 2 weeks! I had access to internet just a couple of times and so was unable to post anything. This trip was so different from our trip in May, but once again I came back encouraged by what is happening in Nepal to fight human trafficking. It is an honor to play a tiny part in the work there. Being able to meet the women really makes selling products at World Next Door so personal and real. It really is making a difference! These girls are being loved and treated with dignity and respect- some for the first time in their lives. We ate together, laughed, and danced! Even with the language barrier, it was a great time. Visit our website here to see some of the hats and scarves I brought back. I would love to post pictures of their smiling faces but because of security issues when it comes to trafficking, I can't post them on the internet. Here are a few though of Nepal.

The girls made flower necklaces to greet us with on our first day at the halfway house.

Some school kids that later that night danced for us. I couldn't find my dad and I went outside and they had placed him in a chair in the middle of a crowd and were dancing for him. So fun!

These are houses on the cliff next to a river. There are

little girls climbing down the ladders with buckets to get their water. The bottom picture shows it better.

Getting product ready to come home

We were in the mountains the second half of the trip- my dad was a part of a medical clinic. It was harvest time so everywhere we went we saw "walking haybales". People in Nepal can carry anything!

The mountains in Nepal are breathtakingly beautiful.

Chew on This

Looks like Nestle is in talks to make Kit-Kat fair trade...

FBD: Nestle’s Kit Kat could follow Fairtrade trend (UK)

by FoodBizDaily.com staff writer London
November 09 2009 - Discussions are underway between Nestle and Fairtrade for the confectioner’s Kit Kat brand to become Fairtrade-certified, reports claim.
Kit Kat is Britain’s best-selling chocolate bar, which would make it the biggest single Fairtrade-certified brand if talks are successful, according to dailymail.co.uk.
The Fairtrade logo is already appearing on rival brands as Fairtrade earlier this year certified Cadbury's Dairy Milk.
The Daily Mail reported that a spokeswoman for Nestle would only confirm that discussions had taken place with Fairtrade.
Kit Kat sales increased nearly 20 %this year following an advertising campaign with Girls Aloud.
The shift towards Fairtrade would be the latest in a string of efforts by the global food giant to improve its ethical credentials.
Last month Nestle announced its commitment to using only Certified Sustainable Palm Oil by 2015, the year when it said sufficient quantities were expected to be available.
It was also reported that the company is to spend 110 million Swiss francs ($109 million) on "sustainability initiatives" for the cocoa sector in the next decade, which includes providing millions of disease-resistant plantlets to cocoa producers to help boost yield.

At the End of Slavery

I just learned about this from Nathan and Jency and WOW. What a wonderful idea! At the End of Slavery is the latest documentary by International Justice Mission, and is an eye-opening look at the heartbreaking slave industry that is in full swing today across the globe. Did you know that there are more slaves today than at any other time in human history? This is real, it is happening not so far away from you and me, and we can have an impact.



The ways to get involved are myriad: host a screening of the film; write your Congressional representatives; simply tell a friend. IJM is billing next weekend, Nov. 14-15, as the Weekend to End Slavery. IJM president Gary Haugen will address filming parties across the U.S. at 8 pm Saturday night. Then on Sunday, churches across the country will encourage believers to get involved in the struggle for justice.
Honestly, this is not something you want to miss. (That sounds so trite--but I mean it from the bottom of my heart.)

Just in case my words aren't enough to convince you to check this out, here is what IJM says about the documentary:
Narrated by actor Danny Glover, At the End of Slavery: The Battle for Justice in our Time takes you inside the violent and ugly business of modern-day slavery — the buying and selling of human beings — from the brothels of the Philippines to the brick kilns of India.
Undercover footage and first-person testimony from former slaves and respected experts expose the enormity of the crime — but a remarkable strategy and the courage of today's abolitionists offer hope for a final end to this brutal trade.
Shot on location in the Philippines, India, Cambodia and the U.S., At the End of Slavery takes you to the frontlines of today's battle for justice and includes true stories of former slaves and undercover footage from police operations to rescue children from brothels. International Justice Mission's investigators, lawyers and social workers and their clients, along with other leading abolitionists and anti-trafficking experts, show that there is nothing inevitable about slavery. Law enforcement success in finding and rescuing victims, and prosecuting perpetrators, demonstrates the real possibility of an end to this trade.

Who Made Your Bag?

Does it ever feel like we've lost touch with our roots? I, for one, don't usually have much of an idea where my food comes from (although I did have a small but successful veggie/herb garden this summer, thank you very much!), don't make my own clothes, and don't know as much as I wish I did about the people who work hard to provide the necessities I use in everyday life.
Well, this project is the answer to the ache I'm feeling to be closer to my "roots."
This project, MEND, is a clothing line sponsored by Invisible Children. The group was created to raise awareness about the invisible war in northern Uganda by sharing the personal stories of those involved.
"MEND is designed to seam a personal connection between products, their creators, and you. MEND is proof that what we wear can- and will- make a difference."
Watch this video: I promise you won't regret it!

Turn It Upside Down

Happy Halloween!
In honor of the day, we're doing our own version of the Reverse Trick or Treat thing we told you about earlier--handing out chocolate and information on fair trade chocolate to all comers in our store. I thought I'd share with all of you in Internet world what, exactly, we're sharing with folks, and give you a taste (bad pun, I can't help it) of the info we're sharing with everyone today.

I also thought you might be interested by this Creative Loafing story on a family who is celebrating Halloween with Reverse Trick or Treat for the first time this year.
I've posted the full article below. (OCD note: I am not responsible for the spelling errors in this story!)

Shannon Ward knows that what she buys for her family effects other people.That’s why she and her three kids are participating Reverse Trick or Treating this Halloween.
Seven year old Glynis, 11-year-old Nathan and 13-year-old Thomas will be handing out cards attached to a fair trade piece of chocolate to people in Ward’s father’s Huntersville neighborhood.
“I noticed that with Sameritan’s Purse, the group that sends the shoe boxes, a lot of them go to countries where a lot of chocolate and coffee comes from and I wondered how many of those families are farmers who are getting taken advantage of?” Ward said.
Global Exchange, a global human rights protection agency based out of San Francisco created this program. The organization has been around for over 20 years. 2009 marks the 3rd year of the Reverse Trick-or-Treating program.
This is the first year that the Ward family has had a chance to participate.
“Fair trade is really important to my family and we only buy fair trade chocolate and coffee. There is such an enormous amount of chocolate consumed around this time of year and Valentine’s Day that I just wanted to let people know about it. I think if more people knew about what fair trade is and what it means when they don’t buy fair trade that it would sway them to make different decisions or at least think about the decisions that they’re making.”
So, what is fair trade?
It is a social movement to get higher payment to the farmers in developing countries that produce things like coffee, chocolate and sugar to name a few items.
Ward said that she and her family try to expose as many people to fair trade items. Whenever there is a chance to share things at her kids’ school, The Community School of Davidson, she makes a handcrafted hot chocolate made with fair trade ingredients to get the conversation rolling.
Where does Ward find fair trade coffee and chocolate. The coffee, she said, is easy.
“You can find fair trade coffee any where. Even Wal-Mart and Food Lion sell it now,” she said.
But the chocolate, you have to search for. Here’s a hint — it ain’t Hershey’s. Ward said stores like Earth Fare and Healthy Home Market have fair trade chocolate.
She also said she buys some fair trade chocolate online at Sweet Earth Organic Chocolate.
Ward said she hopes that more people will start paying attention to fair trade and think about the choices they make.

This is not so much an event as it is a simple freebie.
Shop at World Next Door on Halloween dressed in your Halloween costume, and you'll receive a free bar of fair trade chocolate!

Anyone who makes a purchase on Halloween, but is not in costume, will get a free individually wrapped piece of fair trade dark chocolate.

Savor the sweetness of fair trade and know that the money you spend on every fair trade purchase chips away at extreme poverty in developing countries.