This article is presented in partnership with GOEX Apparel.

Encouraging consumers to shop local is good. What’s even better is empowering businesses to sell products that are ethically sourced. In order to create true sustainable change, GOEX Apparel is dedicated to making fair trade products accessible to Missouri businesses.

Cultivating fair trade communities and building up local commerce is more than a goal for GOEX. It’s a calling.

“When you buy a product like a T-shirt from a local business, obviously that local business is benefitting, which is a fabulous thing,” says Jessica Ray, the Executive Director of GOEX. “But if what they’ve done is buy the same thing that you can get at a big box store that takes advantage of people further up the supply chain, you’re limiting how much good you can do. Instead, if that product also supports artisans, local makers, and U.S. jobs, all of a sudden you’ve exponentially maximized how much good you’re doing.” 

GOEX Apparel uses a simple tee to connect the consumer and the maker. Their customers sustain fair wage jobs that liberate families from poverty and empower them in their families and communities.

GOEX is wholly owned by The Global Orphan Project, a Missouri-based nonprofit with a mission to break the orphan cycle through the power of community and commerce. Commerce wasn’t always part of the mission, but was born from the reality that approximately 80 percent of the world’s orphans have parents who would care for them if they could afford to do so. The best way to care for kids and break the orphan cycle is to strengthen and sustain families. 

GOEX is ready to connect you to the Fair Trade movement. You have the ability to change lives through your purchase as an individual and as a business owner. Through a simple tee we can give purpose. 

Feel good. Do good.