Community rental/trade/barter/sale cooperative Discussion

[james bauckman]

So I have a series of projects that I want to create in our community, all are projects around transition and community resilience and want to know more about this Design grant project. $350 will really do very little to get most of these projects off the ground and was wondering if there are any larger scale funding opportunities for larger scale projects? Even beyond this, I am just interested to see what people think of the idea and see if any folks are interested in spearheading this with me.

The first project of many I would like to propose is a partnership with the alternative library and the many talented artisans and craftspeople in our community. It would be a local "Mall" and trade/rental/barter cooperative. Basically, my vision is the other half of the public market divided into 10x10, 20x20, etc sized units where people can set up stalls, booths, shops, etc to sell their goods and services. Another larger section would house things people are renting, bartering selling to the community. I believe the time has come for people to own less stuff and instead, have a local rental/lending cooperative to rent/trade for a lawn mower, weed wacker, power tools, instruments, etc. Lastly, If space is still leftover, we could house the books for prisoners program so they can provide book requests to prisoners in the space as well. I would love to team up with a large number of locally minded, transition folks to get something like this off the ground. Maybe a partnership with Whatcom Investors Network as well.  Call me if interested. James Bauckman. 360-201-5022. I am not looking to run the thing, by the way, I just want to help get it going. Im to busy to run/manage/own this project. I just think its time for it to exist in Bellingham.