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?)

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.

Reverse Trick or Treat

Halloween is months and months away, but that doesn't mean it's too early to start thinking about how to make this year's ghoulish event the best ever.

I, for one, think that means fair trade. And luckily enough, for the third straight year, Global Exchange and Equal Exchange have partnered up to provide chocolate and fair trade info to hand to all comers. Here's what Equal Exchange says about the program: "The goal of the campaign is for trick-or-treaters nationwide to distribute informational cards, each with a piece of Fair Trade chocolate, to as many households as possible."

I know it's only mid-August (already? where has the summer gone?!?!), but it's already time to place orders for this year's Reverse Trick-or-Treat program. Orders for chocolate and postcards must be placed by Oct. 1, but word is that the chocolate will be gone long before then. (Note: orders from Southern states--like Tennessee--will cost $15 more for shipping since warm temperatures down here require 2nd Day Air.)

One blogging mom did this program last year. I thought you might be interested on her take on the experience, as she did the Reverse Trick-or-Treat a bit differently than the groups sponsoring the event suggest.

We gave the candy to teachers, the boys’ friends' parents, and neighbors a day or so before Halloween.
I felt a little preachy doing it, but I thought, “I’m giving them chocolate so I’m sure they won’t mind.” I wanted to spread the word a bit about the importance of fair trade chocolate, but I was hesitant to have my boys hand it out as they went door to door begging others for candy. I didn’t want them to give a message to people they didn’t know that might have been interpreted like this:
You know that candy you just gave me. It could have been better. The candy you just generously gave me, that I asked you for, was probably made from cocoa picked by poor kids who are being overworked. You should give different, better candy.
So we went the route of friends and neighbors who I thought wouldn’t interpret it like that.