Bioneers Swap Meet this Sunday on The Commons!

We’re having a 6th swap meet this Sunday, October 18, 2009. This one is short and sweet, from 12-2pm, and we hope to see you there!

The swap is an official part of the Finger Lakes Bioneers Conference’s downtown festival on the Ithaca Commons! There will be live music and outreach by local environmental groups. We’ll have an info table at the Ampitheatre, along with spaces for free stuff and for bartering / selling, and people to help explain how it works.

What to bring:

• Veggies, teas, baked goods, jams, tofu, home-canned produce, etc.
• Tinctures, soaps, etc.
• Ceramics, woodworking, art, etc.
• Electronics, housewares, tools, books, etc.
• Health services, bike repair, web design, accounting, shoveling, moving, etc.
• Housing, workspace, sharable garden plots, event hosting, etc.
• Bags, boxes or carts to take stuff home in
• A table for your stuff (optional)

Guidelines:

• Our goal is sustainability – please bring stuff that is locally-grown or made from local materials if possible, but anything is welcome!
• Be prepared to take back home with you whatever you don’t end up bartering or giving away.
• Please bring stuff that is in good condition or can be easily-repaired – no junk!

We hope to see you there. Please spread the word even if you can’t come!

• RSVP and see who else is coming on Facebook
• Join the mailing list or our Facebook group to get alerts about upcoming swap meets
• See photos and videos of past swap meets

The Advocacy Center: “support, advocacy and education for survivors of domestic violence since 1977″

Another local organization has been added to our Resources guide: The Advocacy Center. In addition to running a 24-hour hotline for survivors of domestic violence, (607) 277-5000, they offer other services including crisis intervention, shelter and support, legal advocacy, examinations, and referrals.

If you know of other resources that should be listed in the guide, please tell us about them.

Habitat for Humanity of Tompkins and Cortland Counties, New York

I didn’t know that there was a local Habitat for Humanity until I saw a volunteering brochure at Greenstar Coop. We’ve just added them to the Resources guide’s Housing section.

About their services they write,

Habitat is a hand-up, not a hand-out for low-income families in need of an affordable, decent home. Partner families commit 500 hours of “sweat equity” working on their own home, the homes of others, and attaining skills needed for self-sufficiency and responsible homeownership. Families also repay a modest no-profit, no-interest loan with affordable monthly payments. Payments go into a revolving fund to build homes for more families in Tompkins and Cortland Counties. (Read more)

They’re looking for volunteers right now, if anyone out there wants to help create affordable housing in a truly hands-on way. Has anyone reading this had an experience working with Habitat for Humanity, building homes cooperatively, barnraising, or the like? Please post a comment!

More Resources

Our Resources guide continues to expand – Tompkins County is full of amazing organizations and activists doing great work for the community! Here are two we just added this week:

• IthacaNet – “Dedicated to increasing the awareness of, access to, and content on the Internet – by, for, and about the people of Tompkins County, New York.”
• Human Services Coalition of Tompkins County – Visit their website for listings of food pantries, emergency services, a working families resource guide, and more. They also run hotlines: “Need Help Finding Help? Call 2-1-1 or 1-877-211-8667 toll free for Information About… Housing… Transportation… Food… Health Care… Employment Services… Recreation Program… Volunteering… Other Local Services”

Click here to browse the complete Resources guide – and leave us comments if you know of other organizations and services that we’re missing. Thanks for your tips!

A generous landlord, a mortgage lender who fosters abandoned animals, and rescued horses needing new homes

Huffington Post is bearing witness “to the effects of the current economic environment on ordinary Americans” and this post is full of examples both beautiful and heartbreaking:

Rather than send his tenants — including small children — out on the streets, this former stockbroker-turned-savior landlord put himself back to work to cover their expenses out of his own pocket while they get back on their feet.
…
Animals are oft-overlooked innocent victims of the housing crisis. Families, sometimes unable to take their dog or cat with them when forced out of a home, sometimes leave their pets to die. Jodi Polanski, a mortgage lender and founder of Phoenix-area nonprofit Lost Our Home Pet Foundation, is pledging to save these animals by finding new homes and, in some cases, giving them medical help…

Detroit ABC News 7 highlights a horse farm forced into foreclosure and animals with nowhere to go. The farm is home to 31 horses — rescued after injuries, from slaughterhouses, and from negligent owners — who need new stables or face the worst. Many of the horses have health issues and are lucky to be alive at all, but now are left to the mercy of citizens who can adopt them.

Read the whole post here. How has the economy impacted you? Have you turned to the kindness of others yourself, or given generously to help your neighbors? Tell us your story in the comments.

Child Care Needs and Preferences Survey

Sue Dale-Hall, the Executive Director of Ithaca’s Child Development Council, writes, “We need your help to distribute our child care survey to families and friends with children 13 and under. This survey will help us get a community-wide view of parents needs and preferences. Thank you for your assistance. Questions? Call me at 607-273-0259.” Please help us to pass this on – and answer the survey yourself if you’re a caregiver!

The CDC’s mission is “promoting the healthy development of children and families at home, in child care and in the community.”

Parents – We want to know your thoughts about child care. Our on-line survey of your needs and preferences will take about 10 minutes. Your responses to questions about how you found and pay for child care will help us plan to better meet the needs of you and your children.

Please use the link below to access the survey, or visit our website at www.ChildDevelopmentCouncil.org. You may also request a paper copy by calling 607-273-0259 or visiting us at 609 West Clinton Street.

Child Care Needs and Preferences Survey

Swap Meet on Saturday!

The next Swap Meet is this Saturday, September 26th, from 2:30-5pm at Frank’s place in Lansing! For more info and to RSVP click here.

Want to help make the swap meet a success? Help us get out the word – download the poster and email it to your friends, post about it on Facebook, or print a copy and put it up in your neighborhood or at your workplace.

See you on Saturday!

Swapping Video Documentation for Produce

Josh and Jeci organize monthly open mics/slams for Ithaca Area Poets. They’re applying for a local arts grant and thought having a video of one of their events might strengthen their submission. So they asked me to make a 5-minute piece and in exchange they hooked us up with many beautiful baskets of fruits and veggies. Yay for swapping! Here’s the video and the veggies – I hope they get the grant!

Want to share your swapping stories on the Share Tompkins blog? Contact us!

New resources: Free books & video games, neighborhood borrowing groups, and a parents’ swap network

We’ve added a lot of new sharing, bartering, and free stuff networks to the ever-growing Resources Guide. Here’s a peek at the new ones – has anyone participated in any of these networks? Tell us about your experience in the comments!

• Sharing Is Giving – a directory of sharing/freecycling mailing lists, seed exchanges, and garage sale finders; several Finger Lakes groups are listed
• FreeUse Network – local message boards to facilitate sharing (none listed for this area as of Sept. 2009)
• BookMooch – earn borrowing points for giving away your books to folks in the network (by mail, not local-oriented)
• Swaptree – list your books, CDs, DVDs, and video games, and get a list of things you can trade for them; choose your items and print postage (usually less than $2.50) directly from the website to ship the ones you’re exchanging; you can also choose to swap only with local people, coworkers, or friends to avoid shipping
• Zwaggle – a points-based trading network for parents and children – “You receive Zwaggle points (or Zoints) by giving your gently used things to other families, then use those Zoints to obtain “new” things for your family.”
• BorrowingCircle – small local networks of neighbors who share with each other; you can borrow three items at a time
• neighBORROW – “The site provides members of local networks access to a collective online catalog of the items they each own individually.”
• BookCrossing – 804,645 people in over 130 countries giving books to strangers by leaving them in public places. “What happens next is up to fate, and we never know where our books might travel. Track the book’s journey around the world as it is passed on from person to person.”
• PaperBackSwap – “We help members Swap, Trade & Exchange Books with each other for Free… Every time you mail a book to another member, you can request one for yourself. Choose from 3,941,266 available books!” (not just paperbacks)

Photos from Swap Meet #4

more about "Share Tompkins Community Swap Meet #4", posted with vodpod