This is the fourth post in a series on local, preferably non-governmental, initiatives to improve a community.

I was pleased to read today that the city of Boston is offering coupons that turn $10 of food vouchers into $20 to spend at the local farmers’ market.  What a great idea to support local farmers and to improve access to healthy foods for low-income people.

Boston will join more than a half dozen communities across the country with similar double-voucher programs, including Atlanta, San Diego, Providence, and Holyoke.

The funding includes $30,000 from the Mayor’s Fresh Food Fund and three $10,000 grants from Project Bread, Farm Aid, and Wholesome Wave Foundation, which has helped other communities launch similar double-voucher programs since 2007.

I love fresh-air markets and the way they connect consumers to good food and to the people who produce it.  I spent a few of my school years in Madison, Wisconsin, home to the world’s best farmer’s market, IMHO.  I spent many a glorious Saturday morning strolling the Capitol Square with a morning bun and a coffee, filling my shopping bag as I walked.  The entire city turns out — students, couples pulling kids in red wagons, whacky hippies, professors — it’s fabulous.

Now I live in the suburbs north of Boston.  I don’t know of any farmers’ markets in the area (though there must be one somewhere), but we do go to roadside stands.  I especially like honor stands where you just leave your money in a box.  It makes me feel like I’ve moved to Mayberry.  And I love to go to pick-your-own farms with my family.  Every year we pick a bucket (or two) of blueberries.  We freeze some, but we eat most fresh.  It’s unbelievable how many berries we’ll eat if the supply seems limitless.

Other posts in this series on Creative personal economic stimulus:

• Creative personal economic stimulus: Local scrip
• Creative personal economic stimulus: Roger Babson
• Creative personal economic stimulus: Danny Cottrell

Tags: Boston's Bounty Bucks, double-voucher

This is the third post in a series on non-governmental initiatives to improve a local community.

We live in a time of tremendous economic uncertainty.  Newspapers shout about what the government is doing (or should be doing, or should not be doing…) to fix the situation.  But surely there is something that the average Joe (or Joanne) can do, too.  We have empowered our government to spend trillions on our behalf, but have we, in the process, disempowered ourselves?

Here, then, is a link to the history of local scrip — currency printed, circulated and traded like dollars, but backed only by the good faith and credit of the local townspeople.  The purpose of the scrip is to keep transactions local, stimulating the local economy.  Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: economic stimulus, local initiatives, local scrip

Keep Out Of Debt

In the 1930′s, during the last Great Depression, financier Roger Babson personally funded the carving of moralistic slogans into boulders in his boyhood stomping grounds near Gloucester, Massachusetts.  By employing several rock carvers, he helped support the local economy.  Judging from the messages he chose to carve, he preferred to spread his largesse through employment rather than donations.  Sort of a personal WPA project.

Do you think we’ll see such civic support soon?

Photo from The Dacrons.

Tags: economic stimulus, Massachusetts, Roger Babson

Danny Cottrell, a pharmacist in Brewton, Alabama gave $700 to each of his dozen employees.  The catch?  He handed it out in $2 bills.  He asked them to give 15% to a person in need and then spend the rest locally.  Since $2 bills are unusual, the town could see the effect of the money circulating around town.  What a fabulous idea!  Let’s just hope someone doesn’t try to recreate it with Susan B. Anthony dollar coins, or our pockets will be sagging.

Tip o’ the green shade to J.D. at GetRichSlowly.

Tags: Danny Cottrell, economic stimulus