Timbuk2 donates masks to Fair Trade USA

We reached out to our community, and the community reached back! We received inquiries from our neighbors who wanted to help us sew up, box up and ship out the masks. We even received a note from a fan who had a t-shirt company that went out of business years ago. He had thousands of t-shirts, and was holding onto them until he found the right thing to do with them. One rainy day, he loaded up his pickup truck and dropped them off at our Factory. About 5,000 masks were made out of those t-shirts.

One email really stood out. Across the bay, our friends at Fair Trade USA, were figuring out how to keep their farm workers safe from the spread of the pandemic. As essential workers, farmers across North America were working tirelessly to produce the food we all need. When Fair Trade USA heard what Timbuk2 was doing - they reached out.

EJAS Family Farms a small, independently-owned farm located in the Salinas Valley in California and produces heirloom tomatoes and summer squash. JAS employs approximately 25 workers, and masks were delivered to them and their family members.

Thanks to this partnership, we sent 5,000 masks to farms and dairies in Arizona, California, Idaho, New York, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, and Mexico. From office management to harvest workers, and their families, everyone is taking precautionary measures to ensure health and safety. They're putting their masks to great use!

Fair Trade USA presently is working with 8 dairy farms in New York and Idaho to create an innovative model for improving worker and farmer lives in US Dairy. Collectively, these farms employ approximately 400 farm workers.

With every purchase—from coffee to clothes—consumers can vote with their dollars for a fairer, more equitable world. Fair Trade USA imagines a world where farmers, workers, and businesses come together to produce food and create goods in a way that sustains people and the planet. As a 501(c)(3) based in Oakland, California, Fair Trade USA has made tremendous progress in advancing this vision since 1998. Today more than 1,300 businesses sell Fair Trade Certified products from more than 70 countries. The farmers, workers and fishers producing these goods have received more than $740 million in additional financial impact, which has been used to provide access to clean water, build new schools, develop health clinics and improve agricultural practices.

Fair Trade USA certifies farms, factories, and fisheries around the world that meet rigorous environmental and labor standards. For our agricultural work, produce harvested on fair trade farms is sold as Fair Trade Certified to retailers—such as Costco, Safeway, Kroger, and Whole Foods—who in turn sell that produce to consumers. In addition to receiving workplace benefits and protections, workers earn additional income from the fair trade program. For every Fair Trade product sold, the business selling it pays an additional amount of money into a Community Development Premium Fund. From there, the farmworkers decide together how to spend the funds to improve their lives and meet their unique community needs.

To learn more follow Fair Trade USA on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. @FairTradeCertified