Grow Team - Why We Do What We Do

We are trying to start a neighborhood garden on a lot on Archibald Ave. and Walnut St., right by H.O.Wheeler. Chris and I wrote a grant application to fund purchasing compost and timber for raised beds. Below is an excerpt from that letter. I think it starts to paint a picture of who are and what gets us all riled up.

"Grow Team ONE is a group of community minded gardeners who have come together to share skills and resources with their neighbors and to foster and inspire a culture of gardening in the Old North End. Our goals are: 1) to work with community partners to start neighborhood gardens in the Old North End; 2) to support and encourage neighbors to transform their lawns into gardens; and 3) to connect neighbors who want to garden and don't have the space to neighbors who have the space and want to share.

"Grow Team ONE is organized through the Old North End Time Bank, a local network that brings neighbors together to identify community needs and resources and promote the exchange of labor and knowledge.

"...We are passionate about starting this garden because many people in the Old North End do not have access to gardening or community gardening. We rent apartments with limited to no green space, have limited incomes, and limited transportation. With no permanent community gardens and few neighborhood gardens in the Old North End, our ability to enjoy this invaluable resource is hampered. The many benefits of gardening – fresh and nutritious vegetables, exercise, fresh air, connection to nature and place – can increase the quality of individual and community life in the Old North End. A neighborhood garden can begin to heal the division between neighbors, between people and the land, and between refugees and U.S. citizens. It can rebuke the image that our neighborhood is less valuable or worthy of paying attention to and caring for. People and place are interconnected. Low income and marginalized individuals are consistently told that they are less valuable, less worthy of attention or care, less able to be active and essential components of our community. Our neighborhoods reflect this sense of inner neglect. By taking ownership of our space and working together to create something beautiful and nourishing we prove to ourselves and all who walk past it that we have the power to change our community and improve our lives."

Diversity Creates Community

When I was twenty I studied fine arts in Tasmania, Australia. While there, I was able to spend two and a half months traveling the countryside WWOOFing (willing workers on organic farms). I visited a handful of intentional communities - groups of people who come together to intentionally live in community with each other. While intentional communities vary widely in philosophies and structures, most of the people who live in an intentional community share a set of values and ideals.

I learned something truly remarkable living among these various communities. The more homogenous a community was in values and viewpoints - no matter how lofty, ideal, or well intentioned those values - the more imbalance, disharmony and lack of community abounded. It is only within a diverse community that we can find health and balance. No matter how messy and uncomfortable it may be to have your viewpoints challenged and to connect with and comingle with people who are very different from you - to miss out on this opportunity provides you with a half life, an unbalanced perspective, and infinite missed opportunities to expand the possibilities of who you are and what is possible in your community. We are all human. We all share common ground. It is in the struggle to find that common ground, to understand each other, and to accomodate our varied needs, desires, dreams, and passions that we become fully alive.

So many of us march into the world hoping to find community. We have visions for how the world should be and we wish we could mold it to fit our sensibilities. But the goal is not to press our vision upon the world. The goal is to bring people together and through the dance that is human forgiveness and suffering and desire and compromise to create a world that each of us alone could never have dreamed possible.

We are living in a world where a handful of people impose their vision of society on us. Money is concentrated in the hands of the few. Money is an instrument of desire - a tool to make our wishes real. We all have the power to co-create the world we want to live in. However, we have been convinced that we have to be smart enough, professional enough, pretty enough, wealthy enough to do so. That power belongs to a privelaged few. We have been stripped of the tools to come together and exchange with each other to create the world we want to build. Time Dollars is a tool to bring people together. A way to co-create the community we want to live in.

The Gift of Community

It's late and you are tired. You realize that you forgot to buy milk and without it your fettucini alfredo will be ruined. You throw on your coat and go outside. Your neighbor is sitting on her porch holding a mug close to her face. The steam from her cup swirls into the night as she smiles and wonders where you are going. To the store, you say, for milk. She says, I have plenty of milk. How much do you need? You want to argue, you don't want to impose, but she's already rising, insisting you take her gift.

The beauty of that simple gift is it's open ended, full of possibility. Had you gone to the store, you would have paid the cashier and your exchange would be over. You don't owe the cashier anything and she doesn't owe you. But a gift? A gift promises the possibility of relationship. After that gift of milk, you will be more likely to say hi when you see your neighbor in a store or on the street. And if she ever needs anything in the future, you will be more likely to reach out and give back to her in turn.

In the Timebank, when you have a need, someone gifts you with their time in order to satisfy that need. When you spend a Time Dollar with someone, your debt of one Time Dollar is a promise to give back to someone in your community. Those promises are the heart of community. They are open ended. Full of possibility. You are participating in a gift economy. Anthropologists say that gift exchange is the central feature of any community.

Invisible World

Our Media Intern made us this sweet little blog to share the story of an unfolding social change movement. Thanks Joanna!

Timebanking is all about valuing and strengthening the invisible economy that sustains our world. Without mamas and papas and aunts and uncles raising children, without all of the investment it takes to keep neighborhoods safe, to look after each other, the fast paced competitive harrowing world of the market economy would fall apart. Everyday we each take care of each other and the corner of the world we live in. Some of us are so busy from stressful jobs and cluttered lives that it is very difficult to care for ourselves and each other. Most of us have few people to turn to when we fall ill, when we need last minute childcare or transportation to buy groceries! We've lost our communities, our extended networks of friends and family and neighbors who are there to support us, watch out for us, and step in when we need a couple of extra hands to ease the daily stress of our lives and make living more meaningful and fun.

Timebanking reaffirms that every human being is a valuable and essential part of community; that all work deserves to be acknowledged and honored; and that people are stronger and happier when they work together.

For more information about Timebanking check out www.timebanks.org or email melissa@burlingtoncurrency.org.