MaineQuality

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5:30pm on Thursday, Sept. 27th at 303 Payson Smith Hall on USM's Portland Campus (off Falmouth St. see map below) - Hour Exchange Portland with USM's Sociology Department and Student Sociology Association will be hosting a free screening of the documentary Fixing the Future featuring David Brancaccio host of NOW on PBS.  
 
Fixing the Future features Hour Exchange Portland along with other local solutions to fixing the economy including local banking, buy local campaigns, local currency, worker owned cooperatives, and more. We recommend arriving early when the doors open at 5pm to assure you get a seat and hear introductions to the film to discuss some of the innovative solutions happening all across Maine. Those who can’t attend the event can sign up above to receive more information.  
 


The first edition of the documentary can be viewed here: www.pbs.org/now/fixing-the-future/ Hour Exchange Portland creates an alternative local economy of neighbors helping neighbors. Neighbors exchange service cash-free and tax-free based on the currency of time, where everyone’s time is equal no matter what the service being provided. Over the years Hour Exchange Portland members have exchanged over 150,000 hours of community service and provided over 25,000 hours of free health care. Anyone interested in finding out more or joining Hour Exchange Portland can visit their website www.HourExchangePortland.org  

My friends are proud Yankee penny pinchers, we even jokingly call ourselves "Miser Snobs" as we compete with each other to find the best bargains. But our frugality is the opposite of Scrooge, we try to save on the everyday expenses so we can be more generous with the things and people we love.

Even a Miser Snob recognizes that in order to save a lot later, you may have to spend a little now, and that's especially true in Maine. As they say in Maine there are two seasons, winter and the 4th of July. And I just may have found the most bodacious bargain to put all the other Miser Snobs in the state to shame.

Last year the state of Maine planned to weatherize 4,400 homes with the help of nearly $41.9 million in funding from the Recovery Act. This year there ain't no Recovery Act, but next year I found a way we may be able to weatherize over 4,000 homes for only $40 thousand. Now that's a savings!
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Plastic made from corn and potato starch is safe, non-toxic, biodegradable, and supports local farmers and businesses over foreign oil and chemical companies. It is a safe alternative to plastic which contains Bisphenol-A (BPA) which has been linked to breast cancer, diabetes, miscarriage, birth defects, and more. Find out more about Potato Plastic at the Alliance for a Clean and Healthy Maine.

Why support locally owned businesses? Just see Portland Buy Local's top 10 reasons or check out the comprehensive benefit studies done by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. There are also Buy Local campaigns in Bangor, Scarborough, South Portland, Deer Isle-Stonington, Biddeford-Saco, and one called Seacoast Local covering southern Maine and coastal New Hampshire. BALLE (Business Alliance for Local Living Economies) has a national directory you can search as well. A study by the Maine Center for Economic Policy found that every $100 spent at locally owned Portland businesses contributes an additional $58 to the local economy. By comparison, $100 spent at a chain store in Portland yields just $33 in local economic impact. The study concludes that, if residents of the region were to shift 10 percent of their spending from chains to locally owned businesses, it would generate $127 million in additional local economic activity and 874 new jobs in Cumberland County.