The Project for Public Spaces is an amazing organization in the field helping local communities rebuild, or initiate the creation of commons spaces. Often this includes crafts and farmers markets. I have excerpted their article on buying local. If you like what you read, or you want more information on how we got into our current situation, follow the link below to the full article.
–> How Public Markets can Rebuild Local Economies
Reviving local food traditions and economies does not mean junking the existing food system, but embracing new goals beyond just cheap prices and a steady supply. This is plain common sense in a time when economic uncertainty and fluctuating energy costs could mean a sudden drop in food shipped from afar or a huge jump in prices.Changes in food distribution are already underway and this is evident in the exponential increase of farmers markets, the rebirth of public markets in many places, and the rapid emergence of the local food movement. Consumers increasingly want to know where their food comes from for reasons of nutrition and taste. They also see the benefits of investing in the local economy, rather than distant suppliers. And there’s growing awareness that the lack of fresh, healthy food in low-income communities heightens many of the problems associated with poverty.
Local economic revival goes farther than food. Through the Project for Public Spaces…
Wow!
I knew that getting married would take my attention away from my everyday work and life, but I had no idea that a month would pass before I could reintegrate any but the most pressing and timely of my workload, let alone habits. I am back now, grounded, and ready to move forward with you my dear readers.
Our wide world, and local community, have both been serving up quite a bit to ponder lately. I promise bi-weekly reflections and ponderings through the end of the holiday season.
In the traditions of several of my friends, we are in the season of the New Year. Maybe it is indoctrination by the American school system or the sudden smell of fallen leaves, but Autumn seems to me a much more natural, intuitive place to mark the beginning and ending of things than mid-winter.
I encourage my clients and friends to recognize their internal seasons, as much as our societal ones. If in May or Sept, you realize you need to make a break with the past and welcome a new future, then do it! Have a New Year’s party, make a resolution, an adjustment, or even an acknowledgment of your current state.
Autumn has always been a time of beginning for me. It’s resonance is even deeper this year as we live with Hurricane Ike’s prunings piled on every lawn and the changes to my town wrought in that one night slowly reveal themselves as we reassemble our routines. Some of the old routines still serve, and are being reestablished, while others no longer match our reality and need be let go of, perhaps mournfully, perhaps in relief, but let go of either way.
Happy New Year!
* Both the Ethiopian Orthodox & the Hebrew calendar begin in Autumn. Their months also follow the cycles of the moon, instead of the sun.
Texas Bioneers is coming around again, October 17th-19th. I spoke at this conference several years ago. I found it to be very uplifting and inspiring.
Not only did I get to learn from international researchers and pioneers, via the satelite feeds from CA, but I was about to connect with people in our own community making positive changes, towards more natural, sustainable systems of being.
For more conference information contact: Cath Conlon, cathbkwood@aol.com, 713.768.3422 or ConSandra Jones, creatively.inspired@yahoo.com, 713.334.0200.
More information available at www.texasbioneers.org
An idealist is a person who helps other people to be prosperous.
- Henry Ford
Thanks Mr. Ford. It’s official, I am an idealist.
That statement is probably not a revelation to anyone who has worked with me, or even visited with me long at a dinner party. Idealism is not naivete; no matter what my uncle Ron says. The difference is my idealism has legs. I am succeeding and prospering by helping other community members prosper.
Houston is full of these social entrepreneurial idealists. We can all prosper together. Some of us are getting together tonight, and each Wednesday night through October, at Beaver’s Ice House for Green Drinks.
See you there!
EconGrrl
Phew! I will be glad when this month is over. This last half of August is full of the ghosts of last year and the long good-bye I had with my father.
It’s a strange way to begin a business blog post, I know. My experience, through all the strange turns of grief, reminds me of one of the reasons I am such a huge proponent of small local businesses. In a small business there is room to respond to the reality of a person’s experience.
I have eight business relationships to care for in any given week. Working with a small number of clients gives me room to develop both rapore and flexibility with each client.
We are able to engage in a more authentic give and take based on the needs of both parties.
Hurray for human-scaled business!
In July I had the pleasure of speaking to a group of remarkably on the ball women entrepreneurs. They are all members of the Direct Selling Women’s Alliance. They exemplified the creativity that is required to create one’s life with a balance of work, family, personal, and social aspects. Two things all these women had in common were a great sense of humor and a clear purpose for choosing their business.
The local chapter meets monthly, in locations that move widely within the spread of our great city, so all members will get some opportunity to attend with a short commute. For more information about the Houston Chapter of DSWA contact Jennifer Clanton: athenasbyjennifer AT yahoo DOT com.
I got to work with my client, New Living, at the Greater Houston Building Council Expo this weekend.
It was refreshing to talk to so many people who had a clean vision of what they wanted and what they were willing to pay for it. That is a lesson all empowered persons in the marketplace can carry forward.
Your time is valuable. If you know what you are looking for it don’t take long to realize when that is not what you are looking at. Wonderful, but not for me, moving on. Going through the Expo this way, lots of people were able to cruise the thousands of square feet quickly, and only get details that are useful.
This is neat social networking tool my web designer turned me on to. It let’s you share with your network where you are in the real world.
I am excited about using it to stay connected to all my acquaintances in town, and discover/reinforce the local quirky places we go to.
“Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post.”
When I was in 2nd grade, I was about lose my last few baby teeth. No more easy money! With those dire prospects I whipped out my #2 pencil and wrote the Tooth Fairy. I explained to her that money wasn’t worth as much now as it was 3 years earlier when I began supplying her with baby teeth. I also explained how I have fewer teeth to sell, so each one is more precious than the early teeth.
That night the Tooth Fairy gave me a 100% raise. Thus began EconGrrl.
My web presence has been a long time coming, but here we are. Welcome! I need to keep this first post so that next May we’ll know when to throw the party.
See you in the blogosphere!