July 29, 2007 by Julie.

We didn’t. We stayed for dinner at our hosts house in the deep woods of Maine, so we were late getting to
Portland, and Rev. Ben. Shambaugh at St. Luke’s Cathedral.
Many thanks to the Reverend for waiting! Because of his kindness we have holed ourselves up inside a little church rec room and camped out for the night. Unfortunately camping doesn’t always = sleeping for me. Knees and bones got to hurting bad. I left the boys in search of softer pastures and found a little sofa which i could not stretch out on fully but which was at least cushioned…must find a better way to do this tonight…can’t afford not to rest…

My Ben and I took a walk to the shore to the most-photographed lighthouse in the United States. (As you can see, Ben’s homage includes fruit!)

Today we are going to talk to some kids, give them a little slideshow of our trip so far - it’s summer so there is no telling how many will actually be here - and then our noses will go pretty much immediately back to the grindstone to capture, log, account, edit…

signing off for now,
little worker bees

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July 29, 2007 by Julie.

You might not know this but it is our constitutional right to mint our own money. What? yeah, totally.

YERT just spent a day in Great Barrington, Mass, where we visited the EF Schumacher Society and learned all about a local currency called Berkshares. Ten local banks redeem or exchange these beautiful bills and over a hundred stores take them as payment for services and goods. $10 federal gets you $12 Berkshares. That’s a %10 discount for shopping locally!

Berkshares started out as a way for the community to support new small businesses who weren’t traditionally “bankable,” (ie: a woman made delectable goat cheese in her kitchen that became very popular but when she wanted to expand she couldn’t get a bank loan. She had no credit and the banks didn’t see goats as viable income. The community stepped in to help, giving her cash that she could repay in time, through Berkshares).

After little over a year, there are over a million Berkshares in circulation ( I now have $2) and more are being minted. Some shop owners are more willing to accept them than others. Steve Carlotta takes them unequivocably at his photo shop. He sees it as accepting a discount now that he won’t have to pay later in 30%, 40%, 50% off when stuff hasn’t moved off of the shelves.

Ben and I were most impressed by the unique and innovative design. Mark appreciates their simplicity, and ease of use. The bills are, quite frankly, beautiful. The front of each bill shows a person of note in the history of the area, like Norman Rockwell and WE Dubois, and the back of each note is art by a contemporary local artist. If only all money looked this lovely.

Susan Witt of the EF Schumacher Society says that they are only on step 13 of 50 in making Berkshares a substantial part of the community economy but she feels like, with a little more support from the good people of Great Barrington, Berkshares will thrive and grow to make the local economy even stronger. We will definitely be back to use our last $2.

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