by Paul Renshaw
Founding Chair, Mankato Fair Trade .
35 years ago, if you were a coffee farmer anywhere in the Americas, East Africa or South-East Asia, you would have been very worried by the world price of the commodity that your livelihood depended on. You would probably not have been able to make ends meet. This “coffee crisis” of the late 1980s spurred the growth of the international “Fair Trade” or “Fairtrade” movement. Among other benefits, participating farmers and other small producers in the Global South, were enabled, through innovative product labeling, to receive fairer prices and thus reward for the labor.
In 2009 two “Fair Trade/Fairtrade” projects were getting established in Mankato. They started independently and, for a while, proceeded without contact with each another. One, taking place at Loyola Catholic School, was an initiative of Emily Kracht, a Spanish and Global Awareness teacher. The other was the Mankato Area Fair Trade Town Initiative, founded to bring “Fair Trade Town” status to Mankato, the first time this would be done in Minnesota.
Contact over “Fair Trade/Fairtrade” between Loyola and MAFTTI was established in 2009 when Jane Dow, a member of the Steering Committee, contacted Loyola to see if there would be any interest in participating in MAFTTI’s “Reverse Trick or Treat” program at Halloween. Emily responded affirmatively and asked Jane to do a workshop on Fair Trade as well. She saw that Fair Trade fitted snugly in her Global Awareness remit. Furthermore, despite her Lutheran upbringing, she understood how it expressed some essential values within Catholic Social Teaching.
As Jane put it, “From that she went full force into teaching about Fair Trade.” Emily got in touch with Global Exchange in San Francisco and obtained their “Sweet Smarts” Fair Trade curriculum for Grades 4 and 5.
It was not long before Loyola-Fitzgerald students were also using some of the educational materials about Fair Trade/Fairtrade that Jane and Betty Winkworth, another Mankato activist, had compiled. In due course, at a MAFTTI meeting in July 2011, Emily shared with Betty and Jane in leading a discussion on “Fair Trade in Schools, What have we Learned?”
Loyola’s practice at Valentine’s Day was to hold a big fund-raiser that involved “World’s Finest Chocolate”. Early in 2010 Emily told Jane, “After I spoke with the 5th graders last Friday and told them that World’s Finest is not Fair Trade, they are all ready to write letters and advocate for Fair Trade.”
At that time, MAFTTI was raising awareness about child labor on cocoa farms in West Africa and participating in a multi-agency approach to Hershey. Emily arranged for 4th graders to work on postcards to Hershey as part of this effort. She commented about her students at the time, “It is energizing to see their passion for Fair Trade!”
This was only the start for Emily. Her increasing contacts with MAFTTI facilitated Loyola-Fitzgerald making a connection with Fair Trade Campaigns in Philadelphia. This was a crucial step if the school was to be recognized as a Fair Trade School. FTC was, and remains, the national coordinating body for Fair Trade Towns, Colleges, Schools and Religious Congregations.
MAFTTI’s relationship with the Fair Trade School project at Loyola-Fitzgerald was a real highlight of the first few years of its work in the Mankato area. Emily spearheaded the school’s Fair Trade work with curiosity, imagination, enthusiasm, and energy. Fundraising, role plays, letter-writing, silent auction, arts and crafts, public speaking, radio interviews, participation with MAFTTI’s float at the North Mankato Fun
Days Parade, were among activities that figured in age-appropriate ways by which she involved her students in learning about the vision of Fair Trade.
It was thus to MAFTTI’s delight, as well as Loyola-Fitzgerald’s, that, on May 1, 2012, the school was recognized by Fair Trade Campaigns as the first K-12 Fair Trade School in the nation, and only the third such High School. Later in the year, on October 26-28, Loyola was invited to make a presentation on Fair Trade in schools at a conference organized by Fair Trade Campaigns in Chicago, a task fulfilled by Loyola senior Sarah Peller.
The recognition of Loyola-Fitzgerald as a Fair Trade School came only seven months after Mankato became the first Fair Trade Town in Minnesota, the 25th in the country.
Mankato area Fair Trade activists share in the grief of Emily’s family and friends following news of her sudden death on November 12, 2022 at the early age of 45.