Germantown Residents Roll Out ‘Time Banking’ Program
By: Colin Evans, Emma Padner, Zendra Shareef, Wanda Greene, and Dina Portnoy
While it seems like new currencies like Bitcoin or Libra are invented every day, some residents in Germantown are experimenting with an ageless one: time.
This summer, members of Germantown Residents for Economic Alternatives Together, a local community organization, launched a “time bank,” which allows people to barter their services free of cash.
Time banks work like this: members of a program offer their services to earn a number of “time credits” that are dependent on how long they work. Those credits can then be exchanged for someone else’s services.
In Germantown’s time bank, one hour is equivalent to one “time credit.” The minimum amount of time someone can offer a service for is 15 minutes, or 0.25 of a credit.
Germantown’s time bank uses a website called hOurworld, which credits members for the time they log while performing services. Members can save credits and spend them when they need someone else’s services.
Philadelphia Time Bank of One Art, based in Cathedral Park, and Philadelphia County PA Strong, operated in partnership with Rutgers University, both use hOurworld to facilitate their timebank. The online platform is home to over 300 time banking communities around the world.
Since its inception, Germantown’s time bank has grown to 50 members, though some have yet to barter services, said Lindsay Stolkey, an organizer with GREAT.
Members have swapped moving services, health coaching, and even bike lessons since the service began.
Joy Ike, a volunteer with GREAT, said she was not only excited to create the time bank for the positive effects it would have on the community, but for what it would add to her own life.
“I’ve always loved that idea of sharing resources and finding ways to even just recycle things and not throw things away, you know, or find someone else who can use something,” Ike said. “I love that idea, as it applies to sharing talent and not just physical resources.”
According to TimeBanks USA, a nonprofit information hub for time banks, Edgar Cahn, a law professor, created time banking in 1980 to compensate for diminishing federal funding of social services in the ‘80s.
“Ronald Reagan was withdrawing funding for social programs,” Edgar said, according to TimeBanks USA’s website. “They were closing down. I thought that if there was going to be no more of the old money to support communities, we should create a new one.”
Rather than responding to a specific need in Germantown, the time bank is aimed at connecting members of the community, which in turn will improve their advocacy and organizing efforts in the future, Stolkey said.
“If people are all disconnected and not in the know about what’s going on, or just not organized at all, then it’s hard to have a community voice,” Stolkey said.
Ike added that Germantown’s time bank has allowed residents from different social and economic backgrounds to connect and has ‘leveled the playing field’ in terms of how residents value one another’s services.
“Kind of … existing in kind of a culture of honor where someone’s skill set is just as valuable as someone else’s,” she said.
“I think it’s cool to discover everyone’s talents, especially the hidden ones,” she added. “They might not be professional at it, but they might be good at it, or have a knack for it.”
Christa Barfield, who has lived in Germantown for her entire life, said that even though she has not received any services from the time bank, she has shared information about wellness, healthy eating and gardening to other members.
The time bank has allowed her to connect with people in the community, added Barfield, who is also the owner of Viva Leaf Tea Co., a local tea company.
“It makes you feel like you’re even more acquainted with family,” Barfield said.
Reciprocity Time Bank, organized by the Womanist Working Collective, is the only other Philadelphia-area time bank listed in TimeBanks USA’s directory. The Womanist Working Collective started Reciprocity in 2015 as an exercise of “self-determination,” “financial interdependence” and “intentional community building,” according to an article in the Grassroots Fundraising Journal.
On November 2nd, GREAT hosted ‘Radical Time Banking 101,’ an event featuring LaTierra Piphus, the co-organizer of the Womanist Working Collective.
Reciprocity Time Bank works to open time banking to marginalized groups within communities of color, including but not limited to migrants, refugees, and LGBTQ individuals, as well as people involved with the underground economy, Piphus said at the event.
Often, time banks tend to serve white community members as a way to have fun, not as a way to provide services to community members who struggle with finances, Piphus said at the event.
In Germantown, the time bank’s goal is to reach neighbors who need alternative ways to receive services as well as neighbors who deserve more value for the services they offer, Stolkey wrote in an email.
Germantown’s time bank could be beneficial for the community because of its reliance on interdependence and social relationships, she added.
“People reflect on the days where neighbors looked after each other’s children, shared food with each other, cleaned the sidewalks together,” Stolkey wrote in her email. “You can hear the sense of loss in their stories. This is a way to rebuild that spirit.”
“In time banking, we believe everyone has something to offer, and the more diverse the people involved, the more varied resources and offers there will be within the time bank,” she added.
Germantown’s time bank seems to appeal to people who are moving to the community, rather than longtime residents, Barfield said.
“It seems to me that people are coming in and wanting to build upon the history and the historical nature and the historical integrity of what’s already here and share that,” she added. “But honestly, I am actually the only native of Germantown that I’ve met, thus far.”
Germantown’s time bank does provide outreach for members who may not have access to the internet.
“Ultimately, we really want it to be able to pull in the people who might not be able to find things online like everyone else,” Ike said. “The goal of it is to be able to actually kind of bridge the gap between the divides of people who are probably more technological savvy, and those who aren’t. Just being present in the neighborhood is a priority.”
GREAT said their main way to communicate with residents is through attending community events, like the Vernon Park Flea Market & Bazaar and Men Who Care of Germantown’s Outreach Festival.
“It’s really important, especially while the time bank is still new and forming its identity, that our leadership grow to include those whose networks are already within the communities of those who most need alternative and inexpensive ways of having their needs met,” Stolkey wrote in an email.
“We want this to be something neighbors take ownership of, not just to have their needs met, but as a way to create trust and connectedness within the community,” Ike added in the email.
Ike added that one of her favorite things about the time bank is that it not only allows people to give and receive help, but it allows people to learn about different things they might not have the chance to otherwise.
“It also lets you explore something that you might have wanted to do but that might not have wanted to spend the money on,” she said. “I’m still waiting for someone to give free dance lessons.”
