Photo by Marni Rothschild Durlach

Maren Anderson | Fair Trade Retailer

King Street is a far cry from a dusty roadside in Guatemala, where Maren's guilty conscience stirred a vision for her shop, Global Awakening. "I was bargaining with a woman over a quilt, and got her way down below what I should have, then I realized this isn't what it's all about," she says. Now instead of haggling for the best deal, Maren, a former teacher and travel fiend who's roamed from Canada to Italy and Spain and Central America where she taught school, sells crafts from developing countries at a fair price, ensuring that the workers (usually women) can sustain their families and their art. "I get excited about the education component—learning more about co-ops and new products," says Maren. "I love that my customers are learning about the broader world through the goods and the stories behind them. I hope that it's more than shopping; it's a way to awaken people to the world around them."