Email BRAD if you are interested in helping make Jubilee happen in 2024.
FPC was planning to hold a one-day outdoor version of the Jubilee Fair Trade Marketplace on 9/5/21. However, due to the highly transmissible Delta variant of COVID-19, leading organizations in our city have begun canceling even outdoor vendor events. We are heartbroken, but we feel we need to follow suit in order to protect against the spread of the virus. Please support fair trade vendors through online shopping at these links!
About Jubilee International Marketplace: Supporting Economic Justice
Typically held in November, more than one hundred FPC volunteers come together to hold the Jubilee International Marketplace. Jubilee features handmade products from more than 30 Fair Trade organizations, including local vendors who work directly with artisans from countries throughout the world, including Guatemala, Nepal, Thailand, Ethiopia and Chile. The majority of Jubilee’s crafts are created by artisans in developing countries who lack local outlets to sell their work.
Jubilee International Marketplace Supports Economic Justice
Jubilee is a ministry of FPC that provides an opportunity for our multi-generational church family to raise awareness of economic justice through fair wages for artisans. More than 2,000 people attend the sale each year; all artisans receive a fair, living wage as they work to provide food, housing, education, and medical care for their families.
Since Jubilee’s inception 31 years ago, more than a $1,000,000 has been raised to help bridge the gap between our abundant lives and the lives of people in great need. To learn more about Fair Trade, including the guiding principles Fair Trade Federation members follow and common misconceptions about Fair Trade, visit Explore Fair Trade.
The Year of Jubilee: A Model for a Sustainable Society
Jubilee International Marketplace takes its name from the Biblical concepts of the Sabbath year and the year of Jubilee that are described in Deuteronomy 15 and Leviticus 25: Every Sabbath (seventh) year all debts to members of the community are to be forgiven, Hebrew slaves are to be freed and the land is to lie fallow in a Sabbath rest.
Every seven cycles of Sabbath years is to be a year of Jubilee, a time when any land that has been sold is transferred back to the original family owners. The purpose for these actions is stated in Deuteronomy 15:4, “There will, however, be no one in need among you, because the Lord is sure to bless you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you as a possession to occupy.”
The year of Jubilee was a celebration of God’s provision for the whole community, and it serves as a model for a sustainable society in which members cannot acquire an overabundance of resources that permanently impoverish the lives of others. This model provides the foundation and motivation for the Jubilee International Marketplace at FPC, and the principles of Fair Trade provide a practical means to implement the ideals of the Biblical Jubilee.
