A simple idea, a single action has the power to bring about monumental change. For our founder, Edna Ruth Byler, that single action was a humble, unassuming one taken more than 70 years ago.

Byler bought hand-embroidered textiles from women who lacked access to a marketplace. She paid a fair price for them, took them home, and sold them to friends and neighbors on the women's behalf.

What started as one woman selling textiles from the trunk of her car and telling the stories of the women who crafted them, grew into a global fair trade movement with far-reaching social impact.

THE BEGINNINGS:

As a volunteer living in Akron, Pennsylvania in the 1940s, Edna Ruth Byler became known in the Mennonite community for her warm hospitality, creative spirit, and cinnamon rolls.

In 1946, when Byler traveled with her husband to La Plata Valley in Puerto Rico, she met women who embroidered exquisite textiles but had no market to sell them to support their families. Having experienced economic hardship during the Depression, Byler identified with the women's desire to be able to earn a sustainable income. 

With no clear plan but a strong sense of purpose, Byler paid the women for the embroidered goods, brought them home, and began to sell them to people she knew. She reinvested the earnings to buy more from the women. A cycle began.

Seeing the long-term value that sustainable income opportunities bring to marginalized communities, Mennonite Central Committee, a global relief and development nonprofit, supported Byler’s efforts and facilitated international trips to expand the endeavor.

Through the 1950s and 60s, Byler drove her car packed with global needlework and handcrafted wares to women’s sewing circles and parties of interested folks across the country. Sharing the stories of the makers, she described how each purchase meant that a woman gained economic independence and a chance to give her family a brighter future.

Over the decades, global partnerships developed with small-scale artisan enterprises in more than 20 countries. A network of fair trade retail stores grew across the U.S. and Canada. Awareness around inequity in international trade led to the founding of the World Fair Trade Organization.

Edna Ruth Byler’s single gesture, multiplied by the actions of countless others, today carries tangible social impact across ten thousand villages around the world.