Your money’s no good here
... but your talents are at local ‘time bank’By BILL RODGERS and BOB COUPLAND Tribune Chronicle
Diana Shaheen made a bowl of hummus to donate to someone else's party, then a week or so later, Phil Davis showed up at her South Side Youngstown home to replace some broken tiles on her kitchen floor.
Shaheen doesn't know her way around a tool belt and Davis can't cook, but both came out on top in the Time Bank of the Mahoning Watershed.
The Mahoning Watershed is a local chapter of a nationwide pay-it-forward program that prefers a favor-based system to cash. Within the system, helping to fix someone's car, watching someone's children or planning a party are all ways that participants can assist others while also getting help themselves.
The local chapter is the pet project of Tony Budak of Hubbard, who is recently retired.
''The purpose is to create a community of people that are friends, extended family and neighbors. Once they get to know one another they will trade services,'' he said, indicating for example, someone may help him fix a car muffler while he helps someone else clean out the gutters of their house.
Here's how it works.
Shaheen and Davis each went through a sort of job interview when they joined the Time Bank.
After filling out forms, they checked off skills they had on a long list of jobs in categories such as ''health'' or ''construction and repair.''
Budak said child care would require a background check.
Then, they signed up for the Time Bank's Web site, which works like a hybrid of the networking Web site Myspace and a classified advertising Web site. There, they made profiles of the skills they offered and what hours of the day they would be available to do the work.
Any member may post a message asking for specific help, like someone with a truck to help move furniture for an hour. The person who comes through with the truck then earns a Time Dollar, which shows up in a balance on the Web site. That person can use that dollar to buy whatever it is the other members are selling.
This helps Shaheen because her broken tiles aren't worth calling in professional help for, but she can't switch them out on her own. So she asked Davis, who has had a knack for handywork his entire life.
And the program helps Davis because, not only can he not cook, he also owns a lot of property with a lot of lawns that need mowing.
One rule of the Time Bank states that the person asking for work must provide the materials. Other than that, neither Davis nor Shaheen spent a cent in the exchange. Plus, they spent most of the hour chatting and getting to know one another.
"I make out like a bandit as far as time is concerned," Shaheen said.
Budak hopes the bank will grow to include more residents of Trumbull, Mahoning, Columbiana and Hermitage counties. The fledgling bank has about 20 active members, but about 100 others are showing interest.
Budak said the idea has been around for decades and is the brainchild of Edgar Cahn, the former special counsel and speechwriter for Attorney General Robert Kennedy under President John F. Kennedy. Cahn, whose career has focused on poverty and civil rights, created time banking after suffering a nearly fatal heart attack, according to Time Bank's central Web site.
''He felt useless,'' Budak said.
His solution was to create a system to which everyone could contribute and a service economy that could reach anywhere. Bedridden people could earn Time Dollars by doing telephone surveys or someone in prison could fix bicycles to earn Time Dollars for his family on the outside, Budak said. The system has a secondary effect of drawing people closer.
Hence, the Mahoning Watershed group goes out for potluck dinners and parties.
Budak said Time Banks originally were run with a telephone, a notebook and a diligent banker, but the project has really grown since the advent of the Internet. The main Web site states there are 65 active banks in the U.S., with 64 more in development. There also are banks in Japan, the United Kingdom, Canada and Israel.
But can it really work? Teresa Riley, the acting chair of Youngstown State University's Economics Department, characterized time banking as a cross between a barter system and a cash economy. It reminded her of babysitting co-ops and local currency used in Ithica, N.Y.
''The interest (in these programs) increases during periods of economic uncertainty,'' she said.
The biggest obstacle facing Budak's bank is finding enough people with enough different skills to keep an exchange going. She said barter systems work on a principle called a ''double coincidence of wants,'' meaning that each person has to want what the other has in order to trade and keep the economy moving. Cash overcomes that.
''One advantage of cash is that anyone will take my cash,'' Riley said, pointing out that it might not be as easy to substitute mowing a lawn or walking a dog.
One core value of time banking states that ''some work is beyond price,'' with a call to redefine the value of work to whatever helps build a community. To Riley, this assumes a certain amount of altruism on the part of skilled laborers whose work can fetch more cash dollars than Time Dollars.
But for people like Shaheen, a permanent substitute teacher in Youngstown city schools, that ''drawback'' is also a virtue. An hour of driving someone to and from their appointment is ''worth'' exactly the same as an hour spent rotating the tires on someone's car. It's that pure quid-pro-quo that Shaheen gets a kick out of.
''A job a woman does is at the same rate of pay as a man. It makes work more equitable,'' she said.
Budak sees great things for the bank.
''The problem with people today is they live on the same street and they don't talk with one another. This is a way to get people together through their extended families, neighborhood block watches, churches or clubs. We want people to come together in a new way,'' he said.
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oldgreenb
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07-29-08 2:56 PM
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i think it is a great idea and should take ahold in many other communities. how would one start it though? I try and 'pay it forward; whenever I possibly can---- it does come back for you!
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oldgreenb
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07-29-08 2:54 PM
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Tonelli--- its ILLEGAL, ONLY if you pay for a little 'something, something.. ' if you get my drift. OH and be sure to remember what the clear defination of 'IS' is!!! And for gosh sakes- dont use a cell ohone, go to a pay phone!! LOL.
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EducateNF
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07-28-08 10:46 PM
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GeekMom and pookee1: You don't have to wish. Find a few friends and work together to make it happen in your community.
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Tonelli
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07-28-08 8:04 AM
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So if I needed the services of a single female in exchange for some help she may require from my legal know how, wouldn't that be considered illegal? As I recall a local Attorney was reprimanded for this barter concept, I see the potential for abuse here........
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GeekMom
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07-28-08 7:45 AM
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I wish they had this in Ashtabula County as well. I'd sign up in a heartbeat! This is a great idea.
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pookee1
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07-27-08 1:15 PM
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BEING A FORMER RESIDENT OF WARREN...I THINK THIS IS A WONDERFUL IDEA....I SURE WISH WE HAD THIS HERE IN CALIFORNIA...I CAN BAKE A SERIOUS CREAM CHEESE CAKE.....LOL....SEEMS TO ME JUST BEING FRIENDS OUGHTTA HELP THIS PROGRAM ALONG....GOOD LUCK YOU ALL....AND IFFEN A CHAPTER COMES TO CALI....ILL BE SURE TO HOP ON IT
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RDatchuk
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07-27-08 12:47 PM
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This is a wonderful idea, thanks to all that were involved in creating it. Our communities are the best around, we care about are neighbors. This is a great way to show it. People don't realize the extreme need for this service, which grows more and more in this difficult economy, especially with more people on fixed incomes. Thanks again to all involved in creating this wonderful service.
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EducateNF
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07-27-08 10:31 AM
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I love this idea. I don't think a time bank is always necessary to exchange services. Just don't let Uncle Sam find out about it. After all, they will want income tax on the value of the services offered. There are many people who could use this type of system. We all have talents and skills that we can use to help out someone else.
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