2008 Woodie Awards
Campus offers fair trade bananas
Alicia Cook
Issue date: 2/28/08 Section: News
"We proposed the idea [to bring fair trade bananas on campus] to Sodexho here at Cabrini way back in September," Sheehan said. "Then we had to talk to fair trade banana distributors in the area. It was a tedious process and a lot of people contributed to the goal."
Just as everyone hoped, fair trade is now growing at Cabrini. "Jazzman's now [offers] at least one fair trade coffee a day, the coffee in the student restaurant catering is 100 percent fair trade and the bananas in all locations are now fair trade," Niemann says.
Out of all the fair trade products, why bananas? Coming from South American developing countries, "bananas are the up and coming thing as far as fair trade goes," Sheehan said. "It was a big goal for us for the year. We wanted to get more products on campus and spread the word."
The Cabrini students who were invited to the banana split event were mostly freshman who may be interested in becoming involved in fair trade or other social justice issues at Cabrini. The reason for freshman, rather than seniors, is because "they are the future and they can take their ideas on throughout their college years," Laver stated.
Events in the past such as the fair trade coffee tasting, the holiday craft sale have made an impact on campus. Due to the success of those events, now not only is the banana split event taking place, but in addition the second annual "fair trade wallyball" tournament took place on Wednesday, Feb. 27 at 3 p.m., in the Dixon Center squash courts.
While the hopes are high to bring more fair trade products on campus, ideas of ways to bring awareness and interest to Cabrini and the collaboration of everyone involved is an ongoing process. Drew Niemann said, "I hope it expands to things beyond food and beverage. I would love to see this thought process [of fair trade] become part of the culture here on campus."
The process which is involved in bringing fair trade products on campus is not an easy task. Although it can be stressful, students at Cabrini are the perfect people to take initiative. "College students are the trendsetters in the world," Mary Laver said. "Our main goal is to keep the fair trade engine running."
Next steps and new ideas are always being generated and put into action by the CRS fair trade ambassadors and their supporters. According to Sheehan, fair trade activists on campus are currently working on starting an official fair trade club on campus, and bringing more products to Cabrini.
Neimann said that the next steps of the process are focused on "to get others to join the fight."
Just as everyone hoped, fair trade is now growing at Cabrini. "Jazzman's now [offers] at least one fair trade coffee a day, the coffee in the student restaurant catering is 100 percent fair trade and the bananas in all locations are now fair trade," Niemann says.
Out of all the fair trade products, why bananas? Coming from South American developing countries, "bananas are the up and coming thing as far as fair trade goes," Sheehan said. "It was a big goal for us for the year. We wanted to get more products on campus and spread the word."
The Cabrini students who were invited to the banana split event were mostly freshman who may be interested in becoming involved in fair trade or other social justice issues at Cabrini. The reason for freshman, rather than seniors, is because "they are the future and they can take their ideas on throughout their college years," Laver stated.
Events in the past such as the fair trade coffee tasting, the holiday craft sale have made an impact on campus. Due to the success of those events, now not only is the banana split event taking place, but in addition the second annual "fair trade wallyball" tournament took place on Wednesday, Feb. 27 at 3 p.m., in the Dixon Center squash courts.
While the hopes are high to bring more fair trade products on campus, ideas of ways to bring awareness and interest to Cabrini and the collaboration of everyone involved is an ongoing process. Drew Niemann said, "I hope it expands to things beyond food and beverage. I would love to see this thought process [of fair trade] become part of the culture here on campus."
The process which is involved in bringing fair trade products on campus is not an easy task. Although it can be stressful, students at Cabrini are the perfect people to take initiative. "College students are the trendsetters in the world," Mary Laver said. "Our main goal is to keep the fair trade engine running."
Next steps and new ideas are always being generated and put into action by the CRS fair trade ambassadors and their supporters. According to Sheehan, fair trade activists on campus are currently working on starting an official fair trade club on campus, and bringing more products to Cabrini.
Neimann said that the next steps of the process are focused on "to get others to join the fight."
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