It’s once again time for the holiday that so many people seem to loathe. Whether you’re lonely, just had a breakup, allergic to chocolate (I’m so sorry for you), or despise sappy movies, just remember: you define how you celebrate your holidays… and not just your holidays, but all of your days in general. You’re writing your own calendar here, folks, so if you don’t like a tradition or ritual, create your own and enjoy every moment of it!

I’m going through some huge transitions in my own personal life, but have decided to embrace the positive. I’m striving to show my gratitude and appreciation to all of the lovely, lovely souls I like to keep so close to me as opposed to closing myself off from them. This goes for all of my relationships and not just my love life. I am attempting to keep an open heart and mind this year, and I feel it necessary to show my love and excitement for my friends and family this Valentine’s more than to potential romances. I say, for those of us who are single, let’s send “Pal-entines” and appreciate the many, many wonderful people in our lives who make us smile. Let’s embrace our future with these people and learn to laugh and enjoy even the sappiest of holidays together rather than dreading them, or feeling any sort of inadequacy. We are all bright entities.

If you are single, then I want you to take a moment to feel completely empowered. Feel your inner, personal strength and energy that is completely unique to your spirit, and your spirit alone. Send yourself a love letter. Learn to love yourself in new and unexpected ways, for previously undiscovered reasons, and then do the same for your closest friends or family members. Send postcards. Send small, homemade gifts. Make everyone you know a mix CD and let them hear the music that keeps you dancing throughout the day… the music that touches and moves you.

Love everyone, including your ex-partners and antagonists. Transform your negative relationships into positive and ongoing experiences. Don’t be so hard on yourself. Do your best. Keep everyone, absolutely everyone, close to your heart. If we do this together, we will truly feel love on even the most seemingly isolating holidays of the year.

Love life.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Mousse Pie

1 no bake pie shell

Chocolate Fudge:
2 avocados, pitted
½ cup cocoa powder
2 Tbsp agave syrup
2 tsp vanilla

Peanut Butter Mousse:
1 firm silken organic tofu
¾ cup peanut butter
2 Tbsp agave syrup
1 tsp vanilla

Toppings:
¼ cup mini chocolate chips
¼ cup roasted peanuts, crushed

Prepare pie shell according to no bake instructions.

Scoop avocados into food processor. Add cocoa powder, agave and vanilla in food processor and process until smooth. Scrape mixture into pie shell and smooth across the bottom of the shell.

Combine tofu, peanut butter, vanilla, and agave in food processor and process until light and fluffy. Top chocolate layer with peanut butter mixture.

Sprinkle with mini chocolate chips and crushed peanuts and refrigerate until serving, at least one hour.

Saturday, Feb. 25th, 1-5 p.m.
First Congregational Church West Hills Rd.
Discover the abundance of food available in winter and how to use it!

1-2 – Panel Discussion

Panelists include:

Annette Mills – the big picture of how eating locally benefits the economy
Jean Marr – what it takes to change your habits
Matt Bennett – using local foods in cooking
Dr. Virginia Shapiro – meeting your nutritional needs while eating seasonally

2-2:30 – Food Tasting & Community Fair

Samples & recipes featuring local ingredients
Cookbooks & gardening books from Grassroots Bookstore
Growing tips from Schmidt’s Garden Center
Community groups to get you activated

2:30-4:15 – Workshop Sessions

Growing greens year round
Food preservation
Nutritional education & eating locally
Raising urban chickens

4:15-5:00 – Q & A, Wrap-up
Free event!
Child care provided.
Sign up today
Call 541-753-3115

Information from completed applications and interviews and a photo will be included in the insert in the FA Thymes in the spring.  If you are not already the voting Owner of a First Alternative share, you must become one in order to become a candidate.  If you are unsure if you are the voting Owner of your share, contact Customer Service at 541-753-3115.

Download the Application Packet HERE (PDF)

Download the Application Packet HERE (Word)

Download the PDF of the updated map!

Avocados provide nearly 20 essential nutrients, including fiber, potassium, Vitamin E, B-vitamins and folic acid. They also act as a “nutrient booster” by enabling the body to absorb more fat-soluble nutrients, such as alpha and beta-carotene and lutein, in foods that are eaten with the fruit.

Ingredients:

4 avocados
1/2 jalapeño, seeds & membrane removed (you can increase the heat to your taste, this is the low-heat option)
14 grape cherry tomatoes, quartered
1/2 bell pepper (yellow or red is nice for color), fine dice
1/4 cup onion, fine dice*
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 tsp Yakima Applewood Smoked Salt
1/4 cup cilantro, minced
1/2 tsp cumin
1 lime, juiced

Cut the avocados in half and score the flesh. Scoop it out with a spoon into a bowl and add the remaining ingredients. Gently mix to incorporate. Serve with chips, crackers, quesadillas or on sandwiches with BACON!!

* Soak the onions in ice water to reduce their acidity and decrease the lingering “onion breath” factor.

Boys’ & Girls’ Club

The Boys and Girls’ Club helps kids reach their full potential as productive, responsible, caring citizens. Donations from the Beans for Bags program will be used for a nutrition education/cooking club program. Kids will learn academic skills while making healthy meals they can share with their families.

Edible Corvallis Initiative

The Corvallis Environmental Center’s Edible Corvallis initiative is focused on promoting an environmentally and economically thriving food shed in the mid-Willamette Valley through many projects including the Local 6 Tasting Tables at each elementary school in Corvallis!

Senior Dog Rescue

Senior Dog Rescue’s goal is to rescue older dogs who are homeless and place them with permanent loving families. They prefer to take dogs 6 years and older, but no dog is turned away regardless of age.

Western Environmental Law Center

The Western Environmental Law Center uses the power of the law to defend and protect the American West’s treasured landscapes, iconic wildlife and rural communities. We combine our legal skills with sound conservation biology and environmental science to address major environmental issues in the West in the most strategic and effective manner.

Public Pronouncement
January 2012

The Need to Reaffirm Support for Authentic Fair Trade

Deep controversies in the Fair Trade movement have been simmering for over a decade.  The situation has reached a boiling point and concrete actions must be taken or we will risk losing everything we have collectively built.  For those of you who are long-time allies of Equal Exchange, we appreciate your ongoing commitment to us, small farmer co-operatives, and Fair Trade.  It is because of your commitment that small farmer organizations across the world have achieved the level of success they currently enjoy. For those of you who are newer to Fair Trade, we deeply appreciate the time and interest you are showing for small farmers across the world.

Unfortunately, all our advances are now in jeopardy.  Fair Trade USA (formerly TransFair USA) has slowly but steadily chipped away at our principles and values, only recently taking the final steps in building their strategy. They have taken the name Fair Trade USA, then proceeded to leave the international Fair Trade System (FLO International/FairTrade International), lower standards, eliminate farmers from their governance model, and invite large- scale plantations into coffee and all other commodities.

This is not Fair Trade and we are asking you to join with us in differentiating TransFair’s model from the authentic small farmer Fair Trade that we are collectively building.

Our Model: Authentic Fair Trade
In 1986, Equal Exchange was founded to challenge the existing trade model, which favors large plantations, agri-business, and multi-national corporations; support small farmers; and connect consumers and producers through information, education, and the exchange of products in the marketplace.  With our founding, we joined a growing movement of small farmers, alternative traders (ATOs), religious organizations, and non-profits throughout the world with like-minded principles and objectives.  The U.S. consumer co-operative movement has been an integral part of this movement. Underlying our work is the belief that only through organization, can small farmers survive and thrive; and the cooperative model has been essential for building this model of change.

In the 1990’s, Equal Exchange joined with a number of other organizations to create the certifying agency, TransFair USA.  The goal was to create a mechanism, in a complex marketplace, to ensure that a company’s products were providing social, economic and environmental impact for the small farmer organizations that grew them.  With a third party certifier, we hoped that consumers would have more confidence in their purchases without needing to background check every brand and product.  This turned out to be good business and TransFair grew as a result.

The certifiers have their own ideas… and interests. As time passed, TransFair began to take on a life of its own.  Rather than confine itself to its purpose as a certifying agency, collecting fees from industries that used its seal and monitoring them to ensure that Fair Trade practices were being met, TransFair soon developed its own vision.  “Quantity over Quality”, “Breadth over Depth”, and other qualifiers came to be used to describe TransFair’s vision of a world in which vast numbers of products throughout the grocery store could be certified Fair Trade, in as fast a manner as possible. Their problem was supply.  Working with small farmer organizations can be challenging and time-consuming.

These organizations don’t have the same access to market, credit, infrastructure, and technology that large plantations generally do.  Over the opposition of the ATOs, farmer organizations, and a host of other Fair Trade advocates, TransFair and its umbrella organization FairTrade Labelling Organization (FLO) began certifying plantation tea, bananas, cut flowers, and other products with a set of different, less rigorous standards than those elaborated for small farmer organizations.

Soon, large corporations began to see value in certification as well.  They discovered that consumers would respect all of their products, even if only one or two were certified as Fair Trade.  TransFair rapidly began courting big businesses into the Fair Trade “family”, such as Chiquita, Dole, and Nestle. The Fair Trade advocates protested, to no avail. Big business profits grew and, as more volume got certified, TransFair continued to grow as well.

Current happenings
These actions, and many others throughout the years, have created large-scale opposition against the certifiers and bad feelings have mounted about the lack of transparency, accountability, openness, and representation on the boards and within the committees of FLO International and TransFair USA.  Little has changed.  Until this year, when the growing rift finally reached a head:
•       In October, 2010, TransFair unilaterally changed its name to Fair Trade USA.  Ten thousand people signed an Organic Consumers Association petition asking them not to appropriate the name of an entire movement.
http://www.organicconsumers.org/artman2/uploads/1/Press_Release_letters_to_Transfair_FINAL2.pdf

•       During that same time, TransFair announced their Fair Trade Apparel standards.  Fair Traders complained that the standards are too low and don’t require unionized factories.  http://ethixmerch.com/blog/race-fair-trade.

•       In September 2011, TransFair announced their new initiative, Fair Trade for All, certifying plantations in all remaining categories (coffee, cocoa, sugar, and cotton).  This strategy means that small farmers will now be forced to compete with large plantations for market access – the very reason Fair Trade was created in the first place.  The Fair Trade community opposes this action.  Read the Latin American and Caribbean Network of Small Fair Trade Producers’ (CLAC) statement:
http://smallfarmersbigchange.coop/2011/10/05/4153/ and Fair World Project’s
statement: http://fairworldproject.org/news/single/477.

•       Part of TransFair’s, Fair Trade For All initiative includes lowering standards so as to make it even easier for corporations to label their products as Fair Trade.  Many have opposed this.  Read FWP’s statement:
http://smallfarmersbigchange.coop/2011/10/20/fair-trade-usa-goes-rogue-new-%E2%80%9Cstandards%E2%80%9D-undermine-fair-trade-commitment-to-farmers-and-consumers/
and the United Students For Fair Trade statement:
http://smallfarmersbigchange.coop/2011/10/28/united-students-for-fair-trade-call-for-a-boycott-on-transfairfairtrade-usa-certified-products/

•       The day after TransFair announced their strategy, knowing that they would be opposed by FLO International, and the movement in general, they left the FLO system and now plan to go it alone. This was the breaking point.

It is time to withdraw support from TransFair USA/FairTrade USA products. They do not represent Fair Trade.

What are we asking?
Please ask your friends and work colleagues to sign our public statement:
http://www.equalexchange.coop/fair-trade-campaign.  They may sign as organizations and/or individuals.

Please continue to educate yourselves and others about the issues brewing in the Fair Trade world.  For more information on Equal Exchange’s perspective on the differences between Authentic Fair Trade and what TransFair USA is doing, please read Rink Dickinson’s views here:
http://smallfarmersbigchange.coop/2011/10/23/4269/.  For a producer point of view, please read this:
http://smallfarmersbigchange.coop/2011/12/15/mexican-small-farmer-fair-trade-producers-speak-out-we-can-only-move-forward-with-authentic-fair-trade/

We remain engaged with small farmers and with the international Fair Trade system.  We will keep you posted on events as they unfold. As always, thanks for your loyal support, your commitment, and for putting your values into action.
If you have any questions, please call Phyllis Robinson, Education & Campaigns Manager, at 774-776-7390.

Meet Shane!What do you do at the Co-op and how long have you been working here?

What brought you to the Co-op?
My one and only mother—the almighty Nina.

What do you like best about your job?
The atmosphere. I love the diverse personality that is seen within our staff and the customers.

What are some of your favorite products at the Co-op?
Produce. (A bit obvious, ‘eh?) My cat loves the food. I love the chocolate. So many delicious kinds of chocolate. Oh, and the dried mango in bulk–so delicious. Number one though—I would have to say the chocolate cheesecake.

What do you like to do outside of work?
Outside of work, I tend to hang out with friends really. Watch movies, of which I am a big fan. I have a friend I usually spend hours with playing music on his turntables, scratching and what-not. When the weather permits, I love long boarding. Corvallis has some really good hills to bomb.

Where did you grow up/where have you lived in your life?
Born in California, raised in Philomath, and then moved to Corvallis in 6th grade, and I’ve been here ever since.

Tell us something about yourself others might not know     
I write poetry. I also beat-box and do a bit of vocal scratching (like scratching a record, but done with the voice).

If you had three wishes….
#1) A really good bowl of ice cream. #2) Music music music  #3) A lifetime supply of Chinese food.

Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
The East Coast, Canada, France, Luxemburg (just because); there are some trails I’ve heard of in California I’d really like to go see sometime as well.

What music is playing in your car, home, or head?
This is always my favorite section–so anyone interested in obscure bands, here’s where you get your pen and paper. Adventure Club Dubstep, Pretty Lights, Emancipator, E*Vax, Immortal Technique, 2pac, Saul Williams, Portugal. The Man, Giraffes? Giraffes!, HELLA, Don Caballero, Do Make Say Think, The Mercury Program, Modest Mouse, Led Zeppelin, Sparklehorse, Tera Melos and The Redneck Manifesto.

What are your favorite things about Corvallis?
I love biking/taking walks in and around Corvallis. There are so many cool little nooks you can find in the oddest of places. And I love the horizon where we are–the mountains colliding with the sky is blissful.