TimeBanks USA is the home of the founder of the TimeBank model, Dr. Edgar Cahn. TimeBanks USA helps new TimeBanks start around the world, provides documents, software, and support to TimeBank staff, holds regular conventions for TimeBanks from around the world for their leaders to come together and swap good practices and many other tasks to help this movement of community.
A TimeBank is an organization that brings people together to create opportunities to develop and exchange time and skills with other people in their community by means of Time Dollars. At it's most basic level, TimeBanking is simply about spending an hour doing something you enjoy for a person in your community. That hour then gets logged by the TimeBank as one Time Dollar. You now have a Time Dollar you can spend having someone do something for you.
Time Dollars have been found to be non-taxable in several private IRS rulings. They may be earned by disabled persons, for example, without impacting benefits. Some tangible goods may be available for Time Dollars, if their worth can be expressed in terms of time, such as artwork or food items. Through community outreach, the Mid Maine TimeBank is looking for organizations that are willing to accept Time Dollars in lieu of money for goods, event tickets, and even education! In turn the TimeBank can offer volunteer and networking support to organizations!
TimeBanking can change the world we live in by changing the way the public sector addresses the deep social problems our society still faces.
Children, minorities in poverty, and the elderly are especially hard hit. In these and other areas of social need, TimeBanking offers a powerful new approach for social and systems change. TimeBanking adds spice, diversity, weaving of community and ways to fill gaps in local neighborhoods. The market economy does not fully express democracy or our potential as citizens. We can do more for each other, live with a higher quality of life, and place value on acts of kindness.
The Mid Maine TimeBank, a project of the Kennebec Valley Organization, is an organization that gives individuals, groups, and organizations throughout Kennebec, Somerset, and Penobscot counties the opportunity to connect, share, learn, and exchange skills and talents in a way that builds social networks that strengthen communities.
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