The University of Houston Students for Fair Trade are wrapping up their most successful school year since their founding in the spring of 2006. In early July Campus Progress gave Students for Fair Trade the Action Campaign of the Year Award. Founder and graduate student Timothy O'Brien accepted the award in Washington, D.C. at Campus Progress's fifth annual conference. "It was great to be recognized for the years of hard work that our group members put into our fair trade campaign," O'Brien said. 

"It was also exciting to see SFT member Brendan Laws speak on a panel at the Grassroots Leadership conference one day before we got our award. He was the only student on a panel that included a staffer from Nancy Pelosi's office.The fact that Campus Progress invited SFT to send a member to speak about our campus grassroots organizing success really validates our group and makes all the blood, sweat and tears we have put into this campaign worthwhile," O'Brien continued.

When SFT was founded, there were no fair trade certified products available on campus. Now there are four all fair trade coffee locations, fair trade greeting cards and fair trade tea available on campus. Starting this fall the Java City coffee shop in the heavily traveled student center will only sell fair trade certified coffee.

UH Students for Fair Trade has always had a small membership but they have had big successes. Their campaign has received national press and they have won numerous grants from Transfair USA and Campus Progress. O'Brien first got involved with fair trade as a member of the United Students for Fair Trade coordinating committee. A trip to Nicarauga with USFT members convinced O'Brien it was time to get busy on his campus. "I just wanted to buy a cup of coffee that wasn't sourced from workers who had to endure miserable conditiions," he said. "I never thought that several years later some of us would be receiving all expenses paid trips to Washington, D.C. to speak about our campaign and to receive an award."