Cindy Mowry, Food Service Manager for Equal Exchange and a self-proclaimed coffee geek, will join us for first hand stories from the front lines of the Fair Trade movement. Cindy recently returned from Peru's Bahuaja-Sonene National Park, where she and other Equal Exchange delegates met with members of the Organization of Agrarian Coffee Cooperatives of the Sandia Valleys (CECOVASA) co-operative -- the growers of our "Expedition" drip coffee roast.

CECOVASA, was founded in 1970, when a group of Peruvian coffee farmers in the Lake Titicaca region came together to avoid selling their beans to exploitative middlemen, and instead process and export their beans collectively. CECOVASA now includes eight coffee co-operative communities that are comprised of mostly Quechuan and Aymara indigenous peoples near the Bahuaja-Sonene National Park and the Tambopata-Candamo Nature Reserve. These communities are very remote, 10 to 15 hours by truck from Juliaca, the nearest city.

Equal Exchange's mission is to build long-term trade partnerships that are economically just and environmentally sound, to foster mutually beneficial relationships between farmers and consumers and to demonstrate, through success, the contribution of worker co-operatives and Fair Trade to a more equitable, democratic and sustainable world.

This event will be followed by a film screening on Monsanto at 7:30pm!