Rebecca Hamilton's experience working on Fair Trade issues as an honors student relates to her work for her family’s business, WS Badger Company, manufacturer of Badger Balm and other USDA-certified organic body-care products.
Related Links
Trading Wisdom
Rebecca Hamilton ’09 puts her Fair Trade knowledge to work
Rebecca Rose Hamilton was convinced that she would never enroll at a large university, having always attended small schools. However, the range of course offerings, the option for a self-designed major, and the appeal of small, rigorous honors classes drew her to UMass Amherst.
Commonwealth Honors College, she reflects, “gave me the experience of a small personal college” with access to the vast opportunities a large university affords. She created a self-designed major in ethnobotany and natural product development, took part in the Five College consortium, and completed the honors college’s Citizen Scholars Program.
Of all these opportunities, she says, Citizen Scholars was the most influential. “I got to know students and faculty in small, focused classes. It helped me achieve something I wanted to accomplish—making a difference.”
The Citizen Scholars Program engaged Hamilton in community service with on-campus and regional groups promoting Fair Trade values and goods. She was dedicated to helping them ensure that farmers and producers work under decent conditions and are fairly compensated for what they produce. “When we buy products from people at a fair price—the critical concept in Fair Trade—we ensure economic viability for farmers and small businesses,” Hamilton explains.
Hamilton was instrumental in getting the town of Amherst named the fourth Fair Trade Town in the nation. For her senior project, Hamilton created a model program through which a designated Fair Trade Town can help another town earn that distinction. After she had completed her academics, Hamilton continued on with the national Fair Trade Town coordinator to implement the mentorship program from coast to coast. Participating in the Citizen Scholars Program, she says, “was not just community service learning but rather conscientious service learning, through which I have taken an active role in creating positive social change.”