A fun way to support TWP is to shop our Sustainable Gifts Store. The Field Guide to Sustainable Gifts is TWP's online catalog that provides an outlet to artisans in our program areas (Latin America and Native American reservations) and gives supporters like you a chance to buy cool fair-trade items that make a tangible difference to the people who make them.

TWP helps people improve their lives by solving local environmental problems using simple, sustainable, and appropriate technologies. Now, with your help, we are improving people's lives by supporting the fair trade of art and handicrafts from their cultures. The catalog features Guatemalan textiles, beadwork, and folk art, woven hammock chairs from Nicaragua, traditional quill and beadwork from the Pine Ridge Lakota reservation, and many more beautiful hand-made gifts. There are also sustainable gifts such as shopping bags made from recycled plastic bottles, greeting cards that plant a tree, and organic cotton t-shirts — something for everyone.

Our gift store helps us support our programs, and also helps communities where we work keep their cultures alive while earning fair wages.

Featured Artisan: Los Cuchareros of San Lucas Tolimán

Los Cuchareros of San Lucas Tolimán is a micro-economic project providing income to local Guatemalan families. It also provides an opportunity to develop the skills necessary for managing a business or cooperative. A portion of the sale of each spoon is used for Ayuda a Personas de Tercera Edad, or Aid to the Elderly. This helps provide a monthly allotment of foods and medications to a group of elderly in need.

These skilled Guatemalan woodworkers carve spoons and other kitchen utensils from the wood pruned from coffee and gravilea trees grown in their area. The gravilea trees are the species planted to provide shade the coffee. We currently carry mixing spoons in small, medium, and large, a beautiful ergonomic spoon, a cake server, a salad serving set, the petite sugar spoon, and now the fun duck-headed ladles. We hope you will find these pieces as delightful as we do, and will help us to support Los Cuchareros in their sustainable artistry.