Sean Allen
BRANT NEWS

It’s all about fair trade.

More than 200 people stopped in at Grace Anglican Church’s annual Ten Thousand Villages Festival sale on Saturday.

The church doesn’t make a lot of money from the event, but making money isn’t the point.

“The profit from this is very small,” organizer Marion Bailey said. “It’s not about making money. It’s about the global impact of this festival and bringing people together.”

Ten Thousand Villages is a World Fair Trade Organization based out of New Hamburg, Ontario, that brings crafts from around the world to local doorsteps while making sure artisans are paid fairly.

“Several years ago, we discovered this organization when we were thinking about how we could reach out to the world from our church,” Bailey said.

Grace Anglican Church didn’t stop there. The church wanted to get Brantford artisans involved as well, so it added local vendors to the Ten Thousand Villages Festival.

“We thought about why we were reaching out to the world and not Brantford at the same time,” Bailey said. “This works really well with the local vendors.”

Grace Anglican Church has embraced the fair trade stance of Ten Thousand Villages since adopting the festival, even choosing to only serve fair trade coffee at church events.

Aside from the crafts for sale, the church also ran a silent auction, bake sale and cafeteria on Saturday.