In its second semester as a club, Students For Fair Trade is getting ready to pass a resolution at Wednesday's ASUA Senate meeting to provide more Fair Trade coffee on campus.
At last week's senate meeting, Nancy García, philosophy senior and president of Students For Fair Trade, gave a presentation on Fair Trade certified goods, a standard label certifying that the coffee growers are paid fairly.
Associated Students of the University of Arizona leaders told García and the SFFT to work with Cody Ortmann, ASUA senator, to write a resolution describing the need for Fair Trade coffee blends within student unions and convenience stores on campus.
Ortmann, a political science and sociology senior, said he is working on a resolution with the SFFT, and hopes the proposal will be implemented Wednesday.
If passed, the resolution will bring ASUA's support to SFFT to help educate students and continue lobbying for more Fair Trade goods on campus, García said.
"We want there to be signs and information posted in Seattle's Best and wherever coffee is sold on campus, so that students know if what they are drinking is Fair Trade," Garcîa said.
Garcîa said since ASUA represents the student body, their support will give the issue a bigger audience.
David Galbraith, director of Student Union Dining Services, and Patricia Morrison, of the Community Food Bank, also attended the meeting to show their support for SFFT.
Victoria Christie, assistant director of dining services of the Student Union Memorial Center, said she and Galbraith began working on the issue of Fair Trade goods with Mosenge "Moses" Nyaribo, SFFT founder, at the end of the fall semester.
Dining Services and Seattle's Best had already been discussing how to get Fair Trade coffee on campus, but Nyaribo, an aerospace engineering sophomore, and SFFT helped speed up the process, Christie said.
"It all kind of came together at once," Christie said.
Christie said all regular and decaffeinated coffee sold in SUMC, the Park Student Union and Highland Market are Fair Trade blends, but there are many flavored coffees that are not Fair Trade.
Christie and Galbraith are currently working with a Seattle's Best representative who has agreed to visit Gallagher Theater this semester to speak about the policies of Seattle's Best on Fair Trade, Galbraith said at the meeting.
Providing Fair Trade products has also been a concern among some off-campus coffee houses.
Danny Mannhein, owner of Espresso Art on University Boulevard, said he only sells Fair Trade coffee. Mannhein said regardless of what consumers want, he provides Fair Trade goods for moral reasons.
Mannhein, who opened the cafe in 2004, said he sells Fair Trade "for the same reason as everyone else - you don't want to know your products are produced by slavery."
Christie said she was proud of the SFFT and glad to see groups working together to achieve "such a good common goal."
"It's been a pleasure working with the Students for Fair Trade to help them achieve their goals and awareness about Fair Trade. We (at the Student Union Dining Services) will continue to do whatever we can to reasonably achieve those goals," Christie said.