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Fair Trade Jewellery Co. & War Child Profiled on 100 Huntley St. [Video] 11 August 2009

The Business of ‘Good’

It’s often considered taboo to talk about ‘God’ in relation to a business, there is always potential for misinterpretation of the message, traditional bias, confusion or even scepticism. The safe road is to probably avoid the topic all together. However, as founder of a jewelry company focussed on ethics I felt it was important to communicate where I come from, and how some of my core values translate into the ‘Business of Good’ through the organisation and into the supply chain. As a ‘Christian’ I know there can be a certain amount of fear and shame associated with identifying oneself publicly as such, but it’s important to stand up every once and a while to challenge extremism and connect with a greater community with a few universal values: trust, respect, truth and love. As an entity on to itself the Fair Trade Jewellery Co. naturally shares these ideals; it is a company for all, in support of both our craft and our community without any prejudice. I’d like thank to Bridget Antwi from 100 Huntley Street for this excellent report on us, and our friends at War Child Canada and a little bit about God and I.

And for those interested here’s a little plug for my friends at St. James Cathedral as they’re raising a whopping $3M for the Cathedral Center. The center will continue to provide (incredible) drop-in and community outreach programmes, a facilities upgrade is definitely needed to maintain/support these service(s).

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Trashman 4 War Child Comes to an end. 13 July 2009

It was an incredible week, our ‘Trash Man’ program for War Child Canada achieved some incredible awareness and raised almost *$2000 in 7 (grueling days). We want to thank everyone who blogged, tweeted, called, emailed, donated their support for the initiative

It was an incredible week, our ‘Trash Man’ program for War Child Canada achieved some incredible awareness and raised almost *$2000 in 7 (grueling days). We want to thank everyone who blogged, tweeted, called, emailed, donated their support for the initiative. We are overwhelmed by the response and would especially like to thank Simon Rollason of Great Lakes Brewery for the use of his personal & company vehicles, Zip Car for crediting us for the use of theirs. CBC, Toronto Star, CityTV & CTS  for such positive media coverage, and War Child Canada for allowing us to undertake such an ambitious (& audacious) fundraiser.

To ‘Team Trashman’  Asaka Yamashita, Michael Penney, Toby Proctor, Jaime Woo who joined me on this adventure: you are incredible people, who have my love and appreciation.

"I’d like to thank Ryan and his #Trashman crew for the most extraordinary effort over the last few weeks. You are all War Child heroes, albeit slightly smelly ones. Now go get some sleep!"
 - James Topham, Director of Communications, War Child Canada

The Reason: Sadly the Ontario Environmental Protection Act forbids us from continuing to collect our neighbours trash during the Toronto garbage strike without a $500 certificate of registration with the Ministry. We have decided that $500 was unjustified any money raised from our work should go directly to War Child not a ‘pay to play’ certificate.

We wish both the City & Local 416 well in their negotiations, we hope our light hearted approach took a little pressure off the process by providing a positive alternative during such uncertain and frustrating times.

Please remember http://warchild.ca/trashman link is still open we encourage you to consider War Child and make a donation, every dollar counts.

With Love, Ryan Taylor

*Still counting the beans

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Workin' The Night Shift For War Child Canada 25 June 2009

“Gonna be a long night, it’s gonna be all right, on the night shift” – Lionel Richie

@asakayamashita

@michaelpenney    @ryantaylor

With thanks to Sam, James, Alyson & all the War Child Canada staff for their encouragement and support of this project.

OK so it’s a quote totally out of context, but now that we’ve got the Commodores in your head we’re hoping to make things ‘all right’ by doing something positive during  the Toronto ‘Garbage Strike.’ From 11:59 PM this Friday (the 27th) until 2 PM on Saturday (the 28th)   3am Saturday the 28th until the end of the strike the FTJCo is mobile on the night shift providing garbage removal for FREE after $10 a bag or 6 for $50 donation is made directly to War Child Canada. By providing this FREE service we limit illegal dumping, keep Toronto clean, get to share some smiles, connect with our community through an awesome cause, and by no means break any provincial Environmental Law :) This initiative supports both the City of Toronto and the union Local 416 in their ongoing negotiations and we trust that they will see this initiative as a positive program that supports the law and respects the workers .

Email from the Ministry of the Environment regarding legality of this Fund Raiser:

"ENV1283MC-2009-3124

Mr. Ryan Taylor
E-mail: ryan@ftjco.com

Dear Mr. Taylor:

The Ministry of the Environment (MOE) has received your July 6, 2009
e-mail regarding your company’s fund-raising activities.

The MOE’s regulatory authority under the Environmental Protection Act
over waste management companies does not extend to activities such as
charity fund raising.

The "fund raiser" described in your message would likely fall under
the mandate of the Ontario Ministry of Revenue.  You can visit the web
link at http://www.rev.gov.on.ca/english/publications/client/data.html?sid=4.

You can also call the MOE’s Toronto District Office (416-326-6700) to
discuss your company’s waste management activities, if you need
further clarification about your role and responsibilities under the
EPA.

We hope you find this helpful."

Updated: We’ve decided to extend the program to get the message out and allow communities time to coordinate, thanks for the tremendous support!

 

Updated Pick-up Schedule on our form below:

 

Monday 4am – 7am, Wednesday 4am – 7am, Friday 4am – 7am

Thanks for the support! Trashman is now finished Special Thanks to: Jaime Woo Michael Penney Asaka Yamashita Toby Proctor

 

In The Media

What the press are saying: Toronto Star, Globe & Mail, CBC News @6 [Video] , CityTV News @6 & Breakfast Television

What the Twitterverse is saying:  http://bit.ly/iPTmo

 

Sponsors & Partners

 

Thanks to:  Simon Rollason & Great Lakes Brewery for the use of their vehicles as mini garbage trucks!

 

The CabbageTown BIA is now supporting the initiative! [More]

"the BIA has hired Matt “Sweeps” McAllister to clean our streets twice a week for the duration of the strike. Sweeps started on Friday and he’s been attacking the big problem areas first. He’ll soon be on top of the worst and then he’ll be able to do smaller litter on the walks and near the curb.

When Sweeps has filled his bags, they’ll be taken to the dump by Ryan Taylor from Fair Trade Jewellers, the new store that’s currently under construction at 523 Parliament. Ryan is doing this as a contribution to the international charity, War Child. All of the fees that he’s collecting will be used to help child soldiers.." 


Posters

Would you like to show support War Child’s ‘Trashman’ in your neighborhood? Please click on an image to download and print these posters (size 8.5/11 in Adobe PDF format):

 
  

 *Special thanks to Jason Murphy for the poster graphic and concept

Signing up is a simple process but first some tips on reducing your waste & getting the most from your pick-up (from us or the City)

a. Remove all metal, plastic, and paper including shopping bags and styrofoam. Washing food/beverage containers allows you to store maximum waste without odor or sanitary issues.

b. From the City of Toronto website: "When bringing materials for disposal, please combine Green Bin materials with other garbage, place in securely tied, double plastic bags and bring to any of the drop-off locations". Which means we’ll pick up diapers! …Ugh Yay!  Please try to store out of sunlight & remove all foods and liquids & consider composting in your yard / organizing a community collection.

This suspension of service is a great opportunity for families to discover and implement new ideas for reducing, recycling and waste management, to be applied year round. Here are a couple fantastic ‘green’ resources: http://www.treehugger.com | http://www.davidsuzuki.org | have a suggestion? Please feel free to add your resource in comments & we’ll update.

 

I’m Sold! Sign me up!

Pick-up area: We are limiting our 1st effort to within Toronto ‘proper’ large donations will obviously expand the coverage area ;)

Pick-up times are based on qty and amount donated please be patient with us and complete the form below with details on where you have placed your bags.  If you’re on twitter consider sending  a tweet to @ryantaylor with #trashman #warchild in the message and help spread the word.

Donations are made by credit card directly to War Child Canada. They set us up a special page here: http://www.warchild.ca/trashman once complete please update the form below with pick-up details. – Please donate based on qty of bags i.e. $10 a bag or 6 for $50. Additional donations are always welcome and very much appreciated.

If you can’t pay by credit card we reluctantly accept cash & cheque please make note on the form below.

But wait there’s more!

Toronto’s Twitterati can enjoy a special treat, for just $20 a bag premium you can enjoy watching my friend, the impeccably dressed Duarte Da Silva a.k.a @modernmod squeamishly carry your trash away while you enjoy your favorite beverage (may we suggest a nice chianti) from the comfort of your porch, lawn or stoop. Oh! Did we mention we were filming this?

 

Registration Closed.

We’re All Done. Thanks everyone for their support! #trashman 4 #warchild is getting some sleep Zzzz.

Despite the project ending, please consider supporting War Child by donating here http://www.warchild.ca/trashman


City of Toronto LEGAL drop off stations:


View 2009 Garbage Drop-off Locations in a larger map

 


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FTJCo's Ryan Taylor Speaks on Creating Social Change 10 June 2009

[Ryan looks forward to collaborations that will help optimize the opportunities to create community, expand fundraising, and usher in a new era of volunteerism.]

Fair Trade Jewellery Company CEO Ryan Taylor participated in Net Change Week in Toronto, where he spoke on creating social change and worked with nonprofits to harness new online technologies. Ryan drew on his experiences working on holiday fundraiser hohoTO for the Toronto Daily Bread Food Bank and SpinTO fundraiser that benefited the Toronto People With AIDS Foundation with the FTJCo as the top sponsor.

Ryan was part of an experienced panel sharing "Real Social Media Success Stories" alongside Meghan Warby of public relations firm Hill & Knowlton and James Topham of charity War Child Canada at the My Charity Connects conference, held by CharityHelps.org, one of the largest online philanthropic organizations in Canada. Ryan spoke on fostering community and his involvement with nonprofits and charities, including the unprecedented success of hohoTO. Promoted mostly through social media, Ryan acted not only as one of the organizers but also as an active, vocal promoter generating excitement within the technology community, which helped to attract a sell-out crowd of 600+. In addition, Ryan worked with nonprofits as part of Social Mastermind // Social Media for Social Change, a full day workshop designed to team up knowledgeable members of the technology community like Ryan with nonprofits to help use social media to create change.

Ryan and the FTJCo would like to thank MaRS for organizing Net Change Week, CharityHelps.org for inviting him to speak,  Meghan Warby and James Topham for being incredible co-presenters, and Sarah Prevette of RedWire for the Social Mastermind invite. Ryan is excited to have connected with organizations such as the Toronto Arts Council, Joelle Woodruff and Unicef, the Stephen Lewis Foundation among others and looks forward to collaborations that will help optimize the opportunities available through social media to create community, expand fundraising, and usher in a new era of volunteerism.

Update: James Topham of War Child Canada has written a follow-up post <here> about shifting to a new  collaboration model for non-profits rather than the current competitive one. Planning begins June 22 on what we hope will become an extremely useful resource.