Investing in each other

St. Anns Bay Development Association time bank provides helping hand to local residents

A local program to enhance volunteerism among seniors and younger generations has received federal funding.

The St. Anns Bay Development Association recently received $24,575 through the federal government’s New Horizons for Seniors program to help with the association’s current time bank project. The funds will go toward the expansion of the project to pay a co-orindator and an assistant co-orindator. There will also be an orientation session, and the association has also committed to three neighbourhood projects.

“We were looking for ways to increase access to services for everyone in the region of St. Anns Bay because we’re very stretched out in rural communities,” said Anne-Claude Pépin, member of the association.

“The area is a community with a lot of seniors and a lot of people are happy living in their house and their lifestyle but we were having trouble with certain services.”

The St. Anns time bank began last year when the association began looking at ways to come up with a project that would give local residents access to more services. After doing research on the internet, the group found the time bank project, which promotes volunteerism within communities around the world.

“It has a long history — it was created 30 years ago in the United States,” said Pépin. “Last year we got a (provincial) grant to get it started and to hire a co-orindator to move the project forward and to help people understand it.”

Time banks were first created by Edgar Cahn in 1980, at the time known as service credits. The concept of the project is to give and to receive to help build and support families, neighbourhoods and communities.

The way time banks work, for every hour a person helps meet the needs of another member, you earn time credit for the exchange. The credit you receive can then be redeemed for services from other members.

Today, the St. Anns time bank has 85 members and more than 400 volunteer hours, the majority of those coming in 2017.

“We’re quite happy with the way it’s going, and we have lots of ideas for our next steps and more things we want to do with it,” said Pépin. “We really want to make sure that everybody’s time is equal and valuable.”

Pépin said there’s no age limit as to who can participate in the time bank project.

“We have a lot of people that tell us they’re too old and that they can’t do anything and cannot help, but that’s not true,” she said. “Maybe they can teach you how to knit or how to cook — everyone is valuable and can contribute in some way to the time bank.”

In order to participate in the project, residents must register online through the project’s website, www.stannsbay.timebanks.org. Once participants are registered they can begin to post their needs and what they can offer on the site and connect with fellow members.

Pépin said the time bank project isn’t only for residents in the St. Anns Bay area, noting it’s open to anyone who would like to join.