How Do You Build Community In A Commuter Town?

The information age is a source of wonder and of new ways of entertaining ourselves and connecting with people, yet we live in neighborhoods where we don’t know our neighbors, cities where as long as things don’t get noticeably bad, we don’t care what goes on at city hall or the county board of supervisors. A growing number of us don’t even read the newspaper, even if we subscribe to it.

But what happens to us in this environment when we begin to suffer? When we lose our hours at work or even worse, we lose our jobs? We need to save money, but after you’ve cut as much as you can and still need to cut more what can you do?

You can use your time.  The Hour Exchange Local Partnership is a community time bank, a sophisticated bartering system that allows its members to get services without spending money. Members work for time credits based on the number of hours worked at jobs like running errands, child care, tax services and whatever other skills they have to offer.

Every time an exchange is made there is also a connection created between local people. Pretty soon there are networks of people in town who didn’t know each other before they became involved with the hour exchange.

Pretty soon there are informal interest groups like garden clubs, knitting circles, artists, car clubs and other things. Pretty soon people will have so many local connections they will care about their town in ways they didn’t before.  They may even show up at a government meeting to give their opinion.

This is how you rebuild community in a commuter town. By appealing to self-interest and having people want to make it a priority to build community, although they won’t know it’s what they are doing until they are doing it.

Join us! We are having our first community meeting Thursday June 7 at 6 p.m. at the Suisun City Library.

Visit us at www.facebook.com/HELPFairfieldSuisun or email us at helpfairfieldsuisun@gmail.com