We are lucky to have what we call The Share Exchange in Santa Rosa, California. This is a fantastic and inspiring model that includes frugality, thrifty living and community building in the Share Exchange.
Here's what they are about:
"The Share Exchange Innovation and Incubation Center is Sonoma County’s first coworking space. We offer an affordable place to work during the day and hold community events in the evening.
In addition to having a physical cowork and event space, we are big proponents of LOCAL and SHARING. Often these things can save money and resources.
As such, we are home to the first Made Local Marketplace where everything in our store is made here in Sonoma County. We represent almost 200 local artisans!
If you are short on money, you'll be interested in the Sonoma County Time Exchange which is an hour-for-hour exchange of services.
We find effective resource sharing tools and promote them locally:
Rentalic -- peer to peer sharing of goods
Urban Garden Share -- matching urban farmers with land owners
Neighborhood Fruit -- helps you find and share fruit locally
Santa Rosa Tool Library -- a local lending library for all kinds of tools
This coming Saturday they are having a Clothing, Jewelry, Book and Exercise Gear Exchange. For a small fee of $5.00 you can bring a bag of good, usable items and trade them for something New To You.
I love the entire concept of Share Exchange and hopefully will attend the Swap this Saturday.
Do you have something like this in your community?
in the area of town i lived in previously, they had a community garden. the garden plots sold like lightning every year and brought purpose and cheer to a piece of land that was once becoming an eyesore.
the clothing/item swaps is totally something people could do within their social group/bible study/play groups.
your post got my wheels turning for sure!
oh and BWAD day is almost here!! i have it on my calendar :)
Posted by: Rachael | January 27, 2012 at 09:27 AM
in the area of town i lived in previously, they had a community garden. the garden plots sold like lightning every year and brought purpose and cheer to a piece of land that was once becoming an eyesore.
Posted by: Sally | January 30, 2012 at 01:34 AM
It sounds wonderful! The only thing we have is community gardening which itself is very new in our area. I'm envious of communities that have things like this.
Posted by: Nancy | January 30, 2012 at 05:26 AM