Buying Fair Trade has always been important to us. After our youngest daughter was born, we wanted to find something that we could do together, something that we believed in and that would benefit the wider, global community. We also shared a love of artisan products from Asia, Africa and South America, and so it was a natural choice for us to launch Global Fayre, with the mission of bringing Fair Trade products to southwest Missouri.

It is critical for us to be confident that the people making the products and growing the food are receiving a fair wage, and that the funds coming in to their communities are being used to raise their standard of living. We ensure that either by dealing directly with the producer group, or by working with an intermediary we (and you) can trust. Where we use importers to source products for us, we work exclusively with fellow members of the Fair Trade Federation, or members of the World Fair Trade Organization.

It's also important to us that we bring you only the best product, whether it is a silk scarf from a village in India or the finest coffee beans from Ethiopia. Wherever possible, we 'road-test' products ourselves, whether that means cooking with the Fair Trade ingredients, sampling the coffees or teas, wearing the clothes, or playing with the toys and instruments. Having a physical store as well as an online store gives us the great advantage of seeing customers interact with our products every day. We might make the initial selection, but it's out customers (that's YOU!) that refine it with every purchase.

We hope that you enjoy these beautiful products as much as we do, and we hope that you will help us promote the principles of Fair Trade.

Cheri and David Crump

• Develop Transparent and Accountable Relationships- Fair Trade involves relationships that are open, fair, consistent, and respectful. Members show consideration for both customers and producers by sharing information about the entire trading chain through honest and proactive communication. They create mechanisms to help customers and producers feel actively involved in the trading chain. If problems arise, members work cooperatively with fair trade partners and other organizations to implement solutions.

• Build Capacity- Fair Trade is a means to develop producers' independence.  Members maintain long-term relationships based on solidarity, trust, and mutual respect, so that producers can improve their skills and their access to markets. Members help producers to build capacity through proactive communication, financial and technical assistance, market information, and dialogue. They seek to share lessons learned, to spread best practices, and to strengthen the connections between communities, including among producer groups.

• Promote Fair Trade- Fair Trade encourages an understanding by all participants of their role in world trade. Members actively raise awareness about Fair Trade and the possibility of greater justice in the global economic system. They encourage customers and producers to ask questions about conventional and alternative supply chains and to make informed choices. Members demonstrate that trade can be a positive force for improving living standards, health, education, the distribution of power, and the environment in the communities with which they work.

• Pay Promptly and Fairly- Fair Trade empowers producers to set prices within the framework of the true costs of labor time, materials, sustainable growth, and related factors. Members take steps to ensure that producers have the capacity to manage this process. Members comply with or exceed international, national, local, and, where applicable, Fair Trade Minimum standards for their employees and producers. Members seek to ensure that income is distributed equitably at all times, particularly equal pay for equal work by women and men. Members ensure prompt payment to all of their partners. Producers are offered access to interest-free pre-harvest or pre-production advance payment.

• Support Safe and Empowering Working Conditions - Fair Trade means a safe and healthy working environment free of forced labor. Throughout the trading chain, Members cultivate workplaces that empower people to participate in the decisions that affect them.  Members seek to eliminate discrimination based on race, caste, national origin, religion, disability, gender, sexual orientation, union membership, political affiliation, age, marital, or health status. Members support workplaces free from physical, sexual, psychological, or verbal harassment or abuse.

• Ensure the Rights of Children - Fair Trade means that all children have the right to security, education, and play. Throughout the trading chain, Members respect and support the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, as well as local laws and social norms. Members disclose the involvement of children in production. Members do not support child trafficking and exploitative child labor.

• Cultivate Environmental Stewardship - Fair Trade seeks to offer current generations the ability to meet their needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Members actively consider the implications of their decisions on the environment and promote the responsible stewardship of resources. Members reduce, reuse, reclaim, and recycle materials wherever possible. They encourage environmentally sustainable practices throughout the entire trading chain.

• Respect Cultural Identity - Fair Trade celebrates the cultural diversity of communities, while seeking to create positive and equitable change. Members respect the development of products, practices, and organizational models based on indigenous traditions and techniques to sustain cultures and revitalize traditions. Members balance market needs with producers' cultural heritage.

The Global Fayre Fund

Our commitment to the global community includes those close to home. We want to support causes that play a valuable part in our local community, and have committed to donate 1 cent in every dollar that you spend with us to those causes.

More than that, we believe that since it is your pennies that we are donating, you should help us choose the causes to support.

Every year we will ask you, our customers, to nominate your preferred cause for the year. We will confirm how many pennies we have raised by telling you what the revenues for the year have been, and what 1% of those revenues amounts to, and we will tell you the causes that have been given funds.