Carol's first vacation in eight years ended up being in El Salvador where the local business owner was inspired by learning more about coffee in the small, Central American country.

“It inspired me,” she says. “I realized how fair trade is so important. I had to go back.”

Always a proponent of fair trade products, Carol decided to go back to learn more about fair trade and to connect with the communities and the people who create the product.

The owner of Nature’s Corner Bakery in Ridgeville, says her plan is to make some connections and find more fair trade products to sell at the bakery.

Fair trade is a social movement that gives people and communities in third world and developing countries full market value for their products, helping them develop better trading conditions and sustainability. Fair trade also advocates social and environmental standards. It helps to stop the cycle of "Poverty" in El Salvador and neighbouring countries.

A business trip now turned into a trip of generosity as well.

“Because I was going I wanted to do something to help,” she said.

I contacted Dr. Ken Taylor of St. Catharines who is part of an organization called "Not Just Tourists", where she was provided with a suitcase packed full of medical supplies, medicines, toys, and hand knit items.

 

Help Keeps Creating Smiles

 

In July 2010, Carol Lloyd packed a single suitcase for herself, took with her a second packed full of medicine and baby-items, and $1,000 US and boarded a plane for El Salvador. The owner of Nature’s Corner Bakery in Ridgeville was planning a 10-day business trip to learn more about fair trade products, build some connections, and secure fair trade items for her Pelham store.

Carol says she didn’t truly understand the emotions she’d be dealing with while in El Salvador, explaining you don’t really know until you get there what the mission work will be like and how it will affect you. “You want to do more when you see it,” she says, adding, "I am only one person and can only do so much".

But for Carol, the $1,000 she’d collected here before her trip afforded her an opportunity to do quite a bit. The money allowed her to buy enough beans, rice and corn, the staple diet in El Salvador, to feed the orphanage for 40 days, buy balls, toys, books and some shoes for the children, feed the residents of a seniors’ home for 80 days, buy those residents blankets, sheets and slippers, and still have enough money left over to leave behind to help rebuild the playground at the orphanage.

“So little did so much. It amazed me,” she said.

At the orphanage, children have no shoes, and nothing to do because of the bad condition of the playground, said Carol, so any donation made makes a big impact.

Carol also toured fair trade communities, noting she saw the benefit of fair trade, how communities can sustain themselves economically, how farmers, their families and all people prosper because of it. She also brought home some fair trade items to sell in her store, including a specialty coffee from Santa Teresa, that is fair trade and organic.

Carol has continued returning to El Salvador to local communities and orphanages bringing donations and purchasing items as necessary. A yoga retreat that happened during the month of January 2011 in El Salvador was set up to allow others to experience the "real" El Salvador and feel the emotion of giving to the children of the orphananges. It was a huge success!

Follow Carol on her blog http://carollloydmissioninelsalvador.blogspot.com/
 

Click here to donate to Carol to help keep creating Smiles!