Fair Trade Coffee Tasting, Walking Tour Planned in Teaneck

The following announcement was submitted by Teaneck Fair Trade: 

Miguel Mateo Sebastián, a Fair Trade coffee producer from Guatemala, will visit Teaneck on Sunday, April 21st, as part of Fair Trade USA’s Farmer and Artisan Tour. Teaneck is one stop during their 10-day speaking tour throughout the Northeast United States.

The day will begin with a coffee tasting and social hour hosted by Fair Trade Teaneck at 10 a.m. at the Teaneck General Store, located at 502 Cedar Lane, Teaneck. Guests will have the opportunity to meet Sebastián and to hear his story of how fair trade changed his life. Guests will also be able to sample some of Sebastián’s coffee blends as well as other fair trade coffee brands.

Following the coffee tasting will be an informal walking tour of Teaneck’s fair trade providers.

At 2 p.m., Fair Trade Teaneck will host an interfaith gathering at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, located at 61 Church Street, Teaneck. This event is open to the public and will feature an interview with Sebastián, led by Dennis Klein, Chair of the Fair Trade Teaneck Steering Committee. The focus of the discussion will be the role of fair trade in our nation’s faith traditions. 

Noted Dennis Klein, Fair Trade Teaneck’s steering committee’s chair, “For three years Teaneck residents have become acquainted with Fair Trade’s lofty goals and local practices. This is our uncommon opportunity to engage directly in the Fair Trade story. We are bringing the Fair Trade saga home.” 

Miguel Mateo Sebastián was born in 1973 in a small village located in Barillas, a municipality in the Guatemalan department of Huehuetenango. His parents cultivated crops on a small scale before his father was killed in 1982 during the civil war in Guatemala.

Since 2006, Miguel has been working with the Manos Campesinas, a cooperative of 1,200 farmers and other producers that exports Fair Trade organic coffee to the United States and Europe. For these residents in the southwest regions of Quetzaltenango, San Marcos, Chimaltenango and Sololá, coffee is their main source of income.

Fair Trade is a response to an escalating human rights crisis in developing regions of the world. It is an alternative to free trade that begins with the formal certification of coffee, tea, and apparel, sugar, and other items, whose production complies with the demanding standards of just labor practices, including the abolition of child slave labor; fair wages; and sustainable farming methods. By purchasing Fair Trade products from Fair Trade retailers, consumers can materially help the impoverished and the vulnerable to become self-sufficient and achieve economic justice. 

The Fair Trade Teaneck Steering Committee is a group of residents, business owners, and community organizations, which was formed in 2010 with the goal of increasing awareness about the social value of certified Fair Trade items and growing Teaneck, N.J. as a Fair Trade Town. For more information, please visit its website at www.fairtradeteaneck.org. 

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