Jun 30, 2009 6:03 am US/Eastern
Money Saver Report: TimeBank Bartering
CBS 2 HD Profiles Unique Way Of Getting What You Need Done By Simply Offering Your Own Time In Response
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
Imagine having someone do your grocery shopping because you helped someone else with some computer training. It's a simple notion of spending an hour on someone else and someone else helps you. Instead of spending money on services, you pay -- and are paid -- with time.
Courtney Ridgeway was getting a dance lesson from Claudia Estupian when CBS 2 HD caught up to her recently in Brooklyn.
Ridgeway, in turn, tutored some first graders on the Lower East Side.
Then after school, the kids and their grandmother take a homemade meal to Barbara Marin in her Washington Heights home.
Yet nobody pays a penny for any of this. They're all members of TimeBank -- a free community-based organization run by the Visiting Nurse Service of New York.
"For every hour of service you perform for a member of the TimeBank you earn one Time credit that you use for any service that's important to you," said Joan Marren, the CEO of the Visiting Nurse Service of New York.
The system is based on hours of service -- not on the nature of the work that's done.
"It is a form of bartering, but it is very different in that everyone's hour is worth the same," Marren said.
No matter what the service is members are as varied as the services offered -- with a broad range of ages, ethnicities and social backgrounds, and everyone has something to offer.
"I'm bilingual and I teach conversation English," Marin said.
"Sewing, things like grocery shopping, these are things that I can do," TimeBank participant Olga Villa said.
"The reason I wanted to get a salsa lesson is that I used to dance and I thought this would be a good way to learn something new," member Ridgeway said.
"It's the golden rule, help me and I'll help you," Marin added.
The services are amazingly varied. Almost anything you can do can be traded through the time bank, everything from accounting and legal services all the way to helping a neighbor hang a shower curtain.
For more information on how TimeBank works, please click
here.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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