The following article was printed in the Marquette
Tribune on November 16th.
"Marquette's switch of coffee vendors this fall raised some questions as to
how interested the university was in supporting fair trade coffee.
But Stone Creek's response leaves little room to doubt otherwise.
Stone Creek owner Eric Resch embodies the ideal Marquette vendor. He
emphasizes the importance of not just selling a product, but interacting with
the customer - in this case, Marquette.
With 52 percent of its drinks now fair trade, Stone Creek has surpassed
Alterra's amount of fair trade drinks at 50 percent, according to Toby Peters,
associate vice president in the Office of Administration. By the end of the
year, Resch made the commitment, along with Marquette, that 80 percent of Stone
Creek's coffee sold to Marquette will be "socially responsible."
Resch met with JUSTICE, the group responsible for bringing Alterra to
Marquette a few years ago, to define what socially responsible coffee is and how
to sell more of it.
JUSTICE President and College of Arts & Sciences sophomore Peter McCuskey
said Resch has created opportunities for student action which Alterra Coffee
Roasters never offered. Not only has he been very open to the group's
suggestions, McCuskey said, but a lot of the action was Resch's own doing.
Other commendable Stone Creek action:
" working with Spanish class service learning projects to help market to
farmers in their native language;
" creating private labeled coffee for student group fundraisers;
" developing internship opportunities for Marquette students.
Among those and others, Resch presented a discussion on buying from those you
can engage past just selling to a regional conference for the Association of
College Unions International a few weeks ago.
Despite the initial controversy, Resch has shown a commitment to business as
a service to others.
"I know that when this first happened maybe there were questions as to why we
were doing this, but hopefully some of this can show that it actually is all
true," Resch said.
You took the words out of our mouths."
Thank you to our friends at Marquette...it has been a blast to work with
you!