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Maggie's Organics Report Card
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Description:
Maggie’s Organics was founded in 1992 on the premise that clothing should be durable, attractive, and affordable, while made using environment-sustaining materials and methods as well as treating workers with dignity. Our socks, tights, scarves, stuffed animals, and loungewear feel as good to buy as they do to wear! We are proud to work with business partners that provide livable working conditions and independence to their workers and that our socks have always flaunted a “Made in the U.S.A.” label. | | Certifications & Associations:
| | Above & Beyond:
At Maggie's Organics our mission is to produce and provide comfortable, durable, affordable and beautiful articles of apparel and accessories made from materials that restore, sustain and enhance the resources, including human, from which they are made.
We support fair trade, responsible business ethics, and environmental stewardship. The company operates with a close-knit community of farmers, yarn mills and garment assemblers in both the U.S. and abroad. "Developing relationships with people who work in the mills and sew our garments is one of the unique things about Maggie's," said Bená Burda, President of Maggie's Organics. "Their stories, families, and lives enrich ours, and we're blessed with a customer base that believes all of this is important."
After learning the harsh facts of conventional cotton cultivation and garment manufacturing, we began making garments a different way - using Organic cotton. We started with socks, and then added tee shirts: simple products that would encourage the use of Organic fibers in order to convert as many acres of land as possible from conventional to organic farming methods.
In the apparel industry, we quickly learned about poor working conditions and pay for the actual sewers that make the clothes we all wear. We became impassioned to find or to create an alternative. By partnering with Jubilee House, a community development organization, and pledging our sewing contracts, we were instrumental in the creation of The Fair Trade Zone, a 100% worker-owned Sewing Co-Operative in Nueva Vida, Nicaragua that helped hurricane refugees create a new life for themselves and their families. The Fair Trade Zone has become the world's first and only 100% worker-owned free trade zone. This status allows the cooperative to compete with foreign-owned free trade zones enjoying the same tax and export benefits, while keeping the profits in their own community. "We hope this project will serve as a model of social responsibility for companies doing business in developing countries," said Burda.
Our partnership with The Fair Trade Zone has inspired us to pursue other projects. Currently, we are working to develop a domestic worker-owned cooperative that will exclusively knit our best-selling Cotton Crew Socks, and we are beginning to develop relationships with other worker-owned producers as well. Less than 3 miles from our headquarters, VG Kids prints many of our garments using soft, crisp water-based inks.
Maggie's has won numerous awards. Most recently, our baby body suit and cap sets won "Best New Green Product" at the 2006 Natural Products Expo East. We were also awarded the 2005 Intercot Recognition Award in the category of "Social Accountability" for Maggie's important contribution made to organic textiles and ecologically sound textile products. Also in 2005, we received Washtenaw County's Waste-Knot Award for our dedication to waste reduction, reuse, recycling and buying recycled products. |
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