Agents of Change Conference: Time as Money
On March 27th and 28th, I had the opportunity to attend the “Agents of Change: Harnessing the Power of Higher Education for Community Change” conference at Gannon University in Erie, PA. I attended the conference with two of my friends and peers, Anastasia Ardasheva and Jocelynn Jackson, along with the Director of Community Service and Service Learning, Jess Maxon. The conference focused on the importance of bridging the gap between campus and community in order to battle poverty and advance social justice.
During the conference, we listened to two amazing keynote speakers—Gregory Crowley, President and CEO of Coro Pittsburgh, and Curtis Jones, Erie City Councilor and Director of Training and Leadership Development for Erie-based VISTA. Several workshop options were also available, and we were able to choose two of them to attend. For me, this was the most exciting part of the conference because I chose a workshop based on the concept of time banking.
The workshop was led by Laurie Baker, an Academic Success Coach at Mercyhurst North East. She talked about the Grapevine TimeXchange program based out of Erie, PA, which allows residents to exchange hours (time credit) instead of money for their services. In this system, everyone’s talents are equal. For example, a doctor might give an hour of his or her time to help an ill neighbor and then receive one time credit from someone else who cleans the doctor’s house. For every hour that a person gives and receives, he or she records it on the time exchange database. This is also where you can find out if a time exchange program exists in your area. Currently, 460 worldwide communities with 31,028 members have received a total of 1,402,788 hours of service.
Interestingly, Huntingdon does have a system in place; however, only 2 people are signed up and they have exchanged 0 hours. For that, I propose that Juniata College students begin to use this system and extend their services to the outside community. Students could shovel snow, mow lawns, read to elementary school kids, or cook dinner for an elderly person in the community. The list is endless. In order to build an even further sense of community, several participating groups have a monthly potluck so that members can meet one another and learn about each other’s skills. If members bring a dish to the potluck, they receive one time credit.
Sometimes Juniata College seems like it is a separate entity from the Huntingdon community, so this system would be great way to unite students and community members. To learn more about time banking, please watch the trailer for Time as Money: A Documentary Film About Time Banking. If you’re interested in signing up for the Huntingdon time banking program, please join here!