I love the idea of someday living in a very tight-knit neighborhood community. By this I mean that families would all live and work together, to some extent. I'd love to have a "community daycare" where each family takes a day off work every week to help watch the community kids. I'd like to live somewhere where everyone chips in to garden, or cooks together sometimes, or makes home repairs when needed- you get the picture. I've got some college friends that like the idea, too, but of course the logistics of getting everyone to live and work in the same part of the country is always tough.
At any rate, I read about a neat idea along the same thread called "time banking" today. It basically means that you volunteer your time to help someone with something you're good at, and for each hour you help, you "bank" an hour of help from someone else. All skills are valued the same - so maybe I could help paint a room or cook or grocery shop and could in turn have someone help me fix my car or teach me how to knit. If you volunteer more hours than you need, you can donate banked hours to various charitable foundations, too.
Anyway, I just thought that this was an interesting concept. If you're interested in learning more, check out timebanks.org.
2 comments:
Ask your husband about the Babysitting Coop we belonged to when he was at that age. It worked well, but it might be a bit iffy these days. There are community gardens here on the Cape. I like the idea, but can envision everyone wanting the plumber and no one needing a librarian!
Ms. Nichols
(I read Sarah's blog)
Kate,
I could not agree more. I wish our neighborhood had this! Some friends of ours have recently been talking about group tool/equipment purchasing. As in, one lawnmower, ladder, electric drill, etc. that we all share. Maybe I can get them to think bigger.
Wendy
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