THE Uniting Church Red Dove store is refocusing and calling for more volunteers in a move to harness local demand for Fair Trade products.
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Given the success of the Fair Trade pop-up store in Goulburn Plaza over Easter, the small store on Goldsmith St will now stock a wide assortment of ethical products.
Teas, toys, shirts, skirts, jewellery, chocolate, tea towels, beanies, homewares and decor; you name it, they’re likely to have it.
The new products were launched last Wednesday morning by Goulburn Mulwaree Mayor Geoff Kettle.
Ahead of the changeover, woman behind the Goulburn Plaza easter pop-up store, Anna Dohnt, told the Post the response to fair trade in the City was beyond expectation.
“Goulburn is fantastic, there’s been an incredibly overwhelming response. I’ve worked with other fair trade communities but I’ve never seen one so responsive as what I’ve seen here in Goulburn,” Ms Dohnt said.
“The pop up store was great. I had people coming into the shop to thank us for being there, some people were so touched they were brought to tears. In response (to the Easter store) the Uniting Church has decided to change from a Red Dove store to a fair trade store.
“The movement is just going to go through the roof in Goulburn. It wasn’t only the sales for me that was incredible but that people were engaging at such a deeper level of understanding as to how consumers need to be mindful of what we buy.”
The now permanent store is somewhat of a throwback to the origins of the Red Dove, first established by the Uniting Church to provide locally made and fair trade products.
“It’s definitely part of our ideology on a national level not just a local level, and we are certainly encouraging people to think in terms of fair trade,” Uniting Church Reverend Julie Furner said.
“When Anna started telling people that the stock would come up here people were saying how the Red Dove always used to sell fair trade so we’ve had a really good history and we’ve got community memory as this being the place where you could get fair trade tea, coffee and other products.
“Goulburn is striving to become a Fair Trade City so this is our way to help that along.”
Money from locally-made items in the store is filtered back into charities, while fair trade proceeds go back to the makers of the product in areas like Nepal, India and areas of Africa.
On the back of each product tag, a story is written on the maker of the product.
“Anna’s done a good job in making it quite affordable. Sometimes fair trade has a reputation of being overexpensive and unacheivable but its quite an affordable range of fair trade stock,” Rev. Aimee Kent said.
“Each product has got on it the story of who made it and which group they’re apart of. Some of the stories are from women who have found their way out of prostitution, some are from leprosy colonies. A lot of the products are from India but there are projects all around the place.”
Current opening hours for the Goldsmith St store are Monday to Friday 10am-4pm.
For information on products or volunteering phone the Goulburn Uniting Church on 4821 7283, or Rev. Julie Furner on 0403 023361.