What a fascinating story/idea:
Wayne Fournier was sitting in a town meeting when he had his big idea.
As the mayor of Tenino, Washington (population: 1,884), he’d watched the pandemic rake local businesses. Residents couldn’t afford groceries. Long lines snaked outside the local food bank. For more than a month, the downtown area looked almost abandoned.
To bring back the economy, Fournier needed to act. “We were talking about grants for business, microloans, trying to team up with a bunch of different banks,” he tells The Hustle. “The big concern was, ‘How do we directly help families and individuals?’”
And then it hit him: “Why not start our own currency?”
Fournier’s local currency program works like this: Residents below the poverty line can apply to receive money from the $10k fund that Tenino has set aside. Fournier says they also have to prove that the pandemic has impacted them, but “we’re pretty open to what that means.”
Once they’re approved, they can pick up their stipends, printed in wooden notes worth $25 each. The city is capping the amount each resident can accrue at 12 wooden notes — or $300 — per month. According to Fournier, each note features a Latin inscription that means, basically, ‘We’ve got this handled.’
The spending comes with a few restrictions: Residents can’t use the money to buy cigarettes, lottery tickets, or alcohol. The currency is designed for the essentials, including food, gas, and daycare. Almost every business in town accepts the wooden notes, and twice a month, they can submit redemption requests to the city to turn the notes into cash.
(https://thehustle.co/covid19-local-currency-tenino-washington/)
Ingenious, eh?
As long as the shopkeepers have trust that they can get real cash for the wooden cash -- and as long as fake wood money doesn't hit the streets -- this is a really cool way to help this small town's economy.
Grace & Peace & Love to you all -
Matt