BHS Financial Literacy classes visit local non-profit shop
When it comes to Christmas presents, it may seem like kids these days are only interested in electronics. Not so with the students in Michaeline Lovell’s financial literacy classes at Bluffton High School, who picked out some hypothetical gifts for themselves on a field trip to Ten Thousand Villages store, on Main Street, Bluffton. These high school seniors enjoyed selecting coffee, tea, chocolate, jewelry and other gifts that are considered Fair Trade.
Although Ten Thousand Villages looks like a regular gift shop, it is a non-profit with a mission: to eradicate poverty and preserve the environment. Fair Trade is a movement that changes the way international trade works through better payment, decent working conditions, ecological preservation and a fairer deal for farmers and workers in developing countries. Believe it or not, the first Fair Trade store in the United States was created right here in Bluffton fifty years ago.