Staff from Co-Operative's Ammanford and Carmarthenshire stores joined Oxfam volunteers and Fairtrade campaigners from Swansea and Carmarthenshire, including a group of Amman Valley sixth form students, on the awareness raising walk.
The walk included stops at community shops and cafes in Trap and Dryslwyn, and at Llandeilo Primary School, where the walkers were welcomed with a performance by the school's Samba band.
Walk organiser Phil Broadhurst said : "When the date for the walk was first arranged there were just 4 or 5 of us doing it. The way the idea took off has been fantastic. The amount of people, from across the community, who got involved has made it a massive success. We've had schools, businesses and community groups all getting involved, as well as individual and group campaigners.
"From first meeting up in i-smooth community cafe at 9am, it was over twelve hours of determined, but fun, Fairtrade awareness raising. From Ysgol Bro Banw's newly written Fairtrade song which they sang outside Ammanford Co-Op as we set off on the walk, to us at the end, collapsed outside Carmarthen Co-Op, but still handing out leaflets to passers by, we kept the message going all the way; that buying Fairtrade products is the only way to guarantee that the producers of those products have really had a fair deal."
The walkers were helped on their way by a Fair Trade Wales support car which was filled with water bottles donated by Ammanford and Llandeilo Co-Operative stores and Menter Bro Dinefwr. The Co-Operative stores also donated Fairtrade snack bars, and, along the route and at the end in Carmarthen's Oxfam shop, walkers were treated to foot massages using Fairtrade Foot Lotion donated by Lush.
For more information on the Carmarthenshire Fair Trade Way, which has been developed with the help of Carmarthenshire's Countryside Rangers, go to http://www.fairtradewayswales.org.uk/ / http://www.ffyrddmasnachdegcymru.org.uk/
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