A growing number of congregations and individuals are buying fair-trade, organic, shade-grown coffee. This means coffee growers in developing countries receive a fair wage for their product, which is grown in an environmentally friendly and sustainable fashion.

In mid-2002, Episcopal Relief and Development began selling Bishops Blend, a fair-trade, organic, shade-grown coffee marketed by Pura Vida. ERD receives 15 percent of profits -- $2,000 to $4,500 a month -- for its programs, said Malaica Kamunanwire, ERD�s annual fund and communications director. Environmental concerns are a key component of ERD�s sustainable development work, she noted.

Brian Sellers-Petersen, ERD�s Province VIII representative, helped make the ERD connection through his friendship with John Sage, Pura Vida founder. Sage had decided to target churches as well as colleges, reasoning that �the one thing Christians can agree on is coffee hour,� Sellers-Petersen recounted.

Pura Vida, which buys from a cooperative of coffee farmers, switched from mostly to 100 percent fair-trade coffee to cement the agreement with ERD, he said. �They have found that that ended up being a benefit, and John has publicly given ERD credit.�

About 500 congregations and dioceses, more than 800 individuals and at least one college -- General Theological Seminary -- have bought Bishops Blend, Kamunanwire said. �This really is a question of stewardship and looking at stewardship more holistically,� Sellers-Petersen said. �Just drinking a cup of coffee can help people.�

Christy Nordstrom has met some of those people. She leads the Fair Trade Coffee Ministry that serves Bishops Blend at St. Mark�s Cathedral, Seattle. Recently, she traveled to Nicaragua to see where and how the coffee is grown.

By selling through cooperatives instead of on the open market, coffee growers earn more -- especially if their coffee is certified as fair-trade and organically grown, she said. That money in turn pays for things like educational scholarships and microcredit for women starting businesses in the communities, she said.

Staying in a coffee grower�s home, she said, �opened my eyes to how ... with a little bit of money, what big changes can be effected in people�s lives. I saw and heard people talk about [how] they�re able to eat more protein during the week. They�re able to send their children to school more often, to buy their uniforms and buy the books. The women ... have better self-esteem and power within their communities.�

In Arizona, the Fair Trade Cafe opened in September under the auspices of a nonprofit organization of Trinity Cathedral, Phoenix. The cafe sells Bishops Blend and Mexican fair-trade, shade-grown organic coffee from Just Coffee.

Facing the risks of any start-up, the venture is struggling, said the cafe�s �instigator,� the Rev. Rebecca McClain, former cathedral dean and now executive director of the national Church Deployment Office.

Although they hoped eventually to turn a profit to use in outreach ministries, she noted, �We knew if all we did was break even, we would be making a difference because we�re both telling a story and delivering a product and helping the people who are providing that product.�