Tonight we hung out with an awesome crew at University of South Florida! More than 50 students came together to jam on fair trade, the cooperative movement, and how they can hold Aramark more accountable. Here's a piece of what rockstar organizer Lauren Maxwell shared with the group: "Tonight we are here to learn about FT. We all always have something new to learn about it even if we’re already familiar with the movement. We’ve all heard the overwhelming stats about poverty. The majority of people living in poverty are farmers- from coffee growers in Ethiopia to banana pickers in Guatemala. Living on ridiculous wages, having to deal with labor exploitation. We are the ones who rely on them everyday for our daily conveniences. Like our cheap products but what about what it is costing farmers all over the world? What can we do about such a huge problem like global poverty? We can do something- support FT! Helping to eradicate global poverty, transformation, empowering. Not just foreign aid or charity to the developing world. "I want to close with why we (InterVarsity) chose to co-sponsor this night. As Christians we believe that God gives His followers a strong call to love the poor, to fight against oppression, and seek justice. We believe that God longs for His righteousness to come into this world and He is the only hope we have for that happening. We do not believe that God calls us to complacency but rather to action. Jesus never stood by and ignored the forgotten. Rather He was the one reaching out to the marginalized of the society He lived in, to the prostitutes, the sick, the tax collectors, to women. The poor in the developing world are ones we tend to forget about very often. Jesus has not forgotten about them. We should not settle for allowing unjust trade systems to work against them but rather we need to think about how God would have us love them, empower them and remember them. Fair Trade is a movement we can become involved in such small ways. It is a way to bring justice, to bring transformation. It is a way to love our brothers and sisters in the developing world. I want to reference Micah 6:8 and Amos 5:24 in here as well. That is the basic idea of what I want to say…it will be a lot more neat and organized than this, this is just the basics. Not just a cool movement but it is about the love of God, how He calls us to love our neighbor, yes, even the ones we will never meet on the other side of the globe."