Alumni Spotlight: Linda Claybourn Jenkins ’80

ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT

A dash of HOPE

By Elizabeth Fontaine Hildebrand ’92

AFTER SEMI-RETIRING FROM THE MEDIA AND PUBLISHING INDUSTRY IN 2003, LINDA CLAYBOURN JENKINS ’80 FOUND HERSELF LOOKING FOR SOMETHING MORE SUBSTANTIAL, MORE MEANINGFUL, TO DO WITH HER TIME. SHE WAS SEARCHING FOR WAYS TO GIVE BACK.

And now, the former finance executive has found a way to fulfill that philanthropic desire through Trades of Hope, a fair trade organization dedicated to empowering women out of poverty. As a “compassionate entrepreneur,” Jenkins, who is a member of Westminster’s Board of Trustees, serves as a spokesperson and sales representative, selling products crafted by impoverished women from all over the globe.

“This has truly become my passion,” Jenkins said. “This is life-changing work.”

It was Jenkins’ mother who introduced her to Trades of Hope more than five years ago when the business, based in her mother’s town of Palm Coast, Fla., was just getting o the ground. Jenkins was moved by the company’s mission—to help women across the world build better lives for themselves through sustainable work—and became Trades of Hope’s 20th independent sales representative. Today, there are more than 2,000.

Trades of Hope follows the home party and online business model: with the help of sales representatives, clients host catalog parties—either at home or online—and sell goods such as jewelry, scarves and artwork that have been handcrafted by artisans from Nepal, India, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines, Uganda, Kenya, Jordan, Haiti, Colombia, Costa Rica, Peru and Guatemala.

In a world where poverty a ects 1.3 billion people—70 percent of whom are women— Trades of Hope aims to create sustainable work for these women.

“They don’t want charity. They want opportunities,” said Jenkins. The real way to establish long-term change, to promote dignified change, is to develop long-term opportunities, she said. “Hand-outs only perpetuate that gap between the haves and the have-nots.”

And following Fair Trade Federation principles helps create those opportunities. By being paid fair trade wages, Jenkins said, these women are able to escape desperate situations such as living in slums and extreme poverty, working in sweatshops, and being exploited through sex tra cking and slavery. Artisans are paid nearly six times more for their products than they would earn locally.

By creating sustainable employment opportunities, the artisans they work with are able to provide food, shelter, medicine, and education for themselves and their families.

In her five years with Trades of Hope, Jenkins has had the opportunity to travel with the company’s founders to Haiti, Costa Rica and Guatemala to meet artisans, hear their stories, and learn how Trades of Hope is making a di erence in their lives.

“These have been enduring and humbling experiences,” said Jenkins. “They fill me with the passion I now have for helping women around the world.”

Jenkins admits that going from serving as a New York City-based CFO to being on the ground selling jewelry at home parties was a “di erent process,” but it has been a completely fulfilling one.

“It all goes back to Westminster,” she said. “When you have had a well-rounded education like the one I was given at Westminster, you can evolve.”

Jenkins in Haiti in 2013. Linda Claybourn Jenkins ’80, left, discusses the Trades of Hope products at the Purchase with a Purpose kiosk during Homecoming.

Jenkins in Guatemala in 2015.