Fair-Trade Family Man

Stacey Toews - Co-founder, Level Ground Trading

levelground.com

photo by Jaime Kowal

Questioning the norm is the norm for Stacey Toews, co-owner of Level Ground Trading, a fair-trade company that imports organically grown coffee beans, naturally dried tropical fruit, and cane sugar.

It was his modus operandi when volunteering with street kids on a remote island in the Philippines, and his credo as an entrepreneur working with farmers in Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, Tanzania, and Ethiopia. It even informed his and his wife’s ideas around creating a family: three of their four children are from Haiti.

“Plan A for us was to adopt,” Stacey explains. “The biggest surprise when I volunteered in Asia was to learn that not all orphans are without family. Their families just couldn’t feed them. Imagine having to let go of your child just because you were born in the wrong place and you were poor.”

For consumers, Stacey encourages us to educate ourselves about green and fair-trade products before we buy. “Consumers need to ask who’s defining ‘fair.’ To us it means face-to-face communication with producers, sustainable farming techniques, awareness about the social impact on communities, and creating a quality product. In the end, people still want a great-tasting cup of coffee.”

Intent on spreading the word, Stacey facilitates dozens of presentations each year on fair-trade practices at schools and community events as Level Ground’s official community ambassador. “Everybody shops,” he reasons. “Our choices matter.”

As father to Ezra, 12, Matthias, 8, Saryn, 5, and nine-month-old Josiah, Stacey hopes his love of pushing boundaries will rub off on his children. “I want my kids to be curious, to take risks, and to never pass up the opportunity to make a difference when they can.”

—Gayle Mavor