Normally I won’t even look at fresh blueberries in the winter because I know they can’t be local. However, this week I opened my spud! grocery bin and proudly unpacked a pint of fresh blueberries from Chile and traded “buying local” for “buying helpful”.
You see, for the past couple of weeks spud! has decided to help the earthquake relief efforts in Chile by selling organic, fair trade blueberries from a small cooperative blueberry grower called Green Tribe and sending 100% of the revenues back to the growers so they can use the money to rebuild the homes for their farmer workers and neighbours.
The idea for this campaign came from our distributor, Discovery Organics after they learned that the world’s fifth largest earthquake had hit Chile on February 27, 2010 (for more info on Discovery Organics, read our blog article from August 13, 2009). Many villages were left without electricity, running water or food.
The Chilean farmers are using the funds to build emergency shelters, all the while trying to harvest what is left of their blueberries! We are pleased to report that our customers purchased $3942 of blueberries, which has been donated. We’re thrilled to support such an amazing cooperative and community in Chile rebuild and continue doing the good work that they do for their community and the environment.
Yeah SPUD! Way to go.