History
The evolution of the Greenheart Shop is colorful, but we hope you will find it interesting!The Chicago Greenheart Shop - an Eco Fair Trade Store and Non-Profit Organization, opened in October 2007 under its parent organization, Center for Cultural Interchange, a not for profit cultural exchange organization. CCI’s mission was founded in 1985 on the belief that increased cultural understanding is necessary for creating a peaceful world. However, after witnessing the world’s rapidly changing environment, CCI felt it was time to diversify its mission and incorporate the Greenheart movement of love and respect for planet earth into its overall operations, thus the birth of our eco-fair trade shop and becoming a Chicago environmentally responsible business.
Greenheart Shop represents just a fraction of the holistic movement known as Greenheart. Over 10 years ago CCI’s Founder, Emanuel Kuntzelman and CEO, Laura Rose, became closely involved with a group of environmentalists living on the island of Ibiza. After a stroke of genius in 1996, “Greenheart” was coined as a term and symbol of love and respect for planet earth. From that point forward, Greenheart blossomed all over the island of Ibiza with emerging projects designed to create harmony between people and planet. The main activities in Ibiza include a model ecological center called the Casita Verde, a school eco-education program and the very first Greenheart fair trade shop, which opened in July 2006. If you were to visit Ibiza today, you would see hundreds of cars sporting the Greenheart sticker as a sign of their global earth-loving ways!
After supporting a multitude of Greenheart projects in Ibiza for several years, Emanuel and Laura recognized the need to bring the Greenheart movement to the US. So, after a green heart-shaped balloon literally fell from the sky (this is not a joke), Emanuel and Laura took the step of bringing Greenheart to North America through their organization, Center for Cultural Interchange. Since 2005, CCI has aspired to incorporate Greenheart projects into each of its departments. Now through CCI and Greenheart, international students visiting the US can partake in various environmental and volunteer opportunities with their US host families or employers, Americans traveling abroad are able to volunteer on environmental and social projects in over 13 countries, and CCI has made radical changes to be as carbon neutral as possible within their office spaces and day to day operations. Having established these connections with the Greenheart movement and the global community, the ground for CCI founding the Greenheart Shop was in place, and in October 2007 the doors were cheerfully opened.
Our non-profit Fair Trade Shop in Chicago and new online fair trade store welcome you…