| PRESS RELEASE For Immediate Release |
For more information, please contact: Nick Rodi, (412) 885-7223 |
Franciscan Sisters Create Brand of Fair Trade Coffee
(Pittsburgh (Whitehall), PA - September 10, 2008) Rich and robust, it’s more than your regular cup of Joe. It is coffee with a conscience.
The Sisters of St. Francis of the Providence of God Sisters are entering the coffee business with their own brand of Fair Trade coffee. Franciscan Blend is a rich and robust blend of Fair Trade coffee beans sold in 12-oz bags of ground regular coffee. Due to the high demand for fair trade coffee, a decaffeinated version will be available at a later date.
This new venture is an effort to raise support to further their ministries, as well as defray the increasing cost of caring for their retired and infirm Sisters. Selling Fair Trade Certified coffee is also an extension of the Sisters’ efforts to help the poor and marginalized.
"Franciscan Blend Coffee is a wonderful blend of ‘win-win’," said USA Provincial Minister Sister J. Lora Dambroski, OSF. " For us, as Franciscan Sisters, it is an opportunity to realize our life direction of extending the hospitality of God. For poor coffee farmers and their families, Fair Trade means a better income for their hard work, allowing them to hold on to their homes, keep their children in school and invest in the quality of their harvest."
Franciscan Blend is produced locally by Arbuckle’s Coffee Company in Verona, PA, and the coffee beans are purchased from Fair Trade importers. Franciscan Blend coffee is available for $10.99 a bag on the Sisters of St. Francis of the Providence of God website at www.osfprov.org or by calling (412) 885-7223.
What is Fair Trade Coffee?
Over half of the world’s coffee is produced on small family farms with only a few acres of coffee trees. Alone, a small family farm cannot compete with larger corporate farms that control the international market price for coffee. With no alternative source of income in rural and agricultural communities, these families often live in extreme poverty.
Fair Trade certification helps small coffee farmers organize into cooperatives that link them directly to coffee importers and allow them to sell their coffee. Through Fair Trade, importers are encouraged to extend financial credit to cooperatives and develop long-term trading relationships. Fair trade farmers are also guaranteed a premium over the prevailing price paid for coffee on the international market, allowing them to earn an income that will support their families.
About the Sisters of St. Francis of the Providence of God
The Sisters of St. Francis of the Providence of God is a community of women religious dedicated to serving the Pittsburgh region, as well as other areas of the USA, Brazil, Bolivia and Lithuania. Their ministries include pastoral and parish services, education, youth and prison outreach, healthcare and other social services.
In Pittsburgh, the Sisters on-campus ministries include the Franciscan Child Day Care Center, which oversees the needs of the infants to pre-kindergarten aged children under their care and guidance. Additionally, the Sisters operate the Franciscan Spirit and Life Center, which ministers to the spiritual needs of their clientele while also offering programs, hermitage retreats, spiritual direction and therapeutic massage.
The Sisters of St. Francis of the Providence of God are the only community of women religious located in Pittsburgh’s South Hills. Over 45 Sisters over the age of 75 live at the Sister Motherhouse in Whitehall, many who are retired teachers and nurses.
For more information about the Sisters of St. Francis of the Providence of God, please call (412) 885-7223 or visit their website at www.osfprov.org.