Thus, for a quarter century, the Time Banking community has proven that:
Healthy seniors and their families can provide reliable, informal care that reduces medical costs.
Fifth graders can tutor third graders who otherwise fail to attain essential reading levels.
Teenagers can tutor elementary school children using evidence-based cross-age peer tutoring.
Moreover, people take pleasure in providing these services. The Visiting Nurse Service of New York reports that seventy-nine percent of TimeBank members feel that their membership gives them support they need to be able to stay in their homes as they get older. Perhaps even more astonishing, a full hundred percent reported they have benefitted from becoming a Time Bank member.
I don’t think that Time Banking lets government or the public sector off the hook by refusing to pay for services that are reasonably part of the social contract. But it does imply that there are limits to how much we should “outsource” our responsibilities as human beings. I don’t think we can or should delegate all our moral responsibilities to paid professionals, agencies or programs. We each have individual and collective responsibilities – and I think the case for collective efforts via tax-supported programs is stronger, not weaker, when all of us, including those with less money, utilize our vast capacity to build community, strengthen families, and advance social justice.
It’s time America discovered its vast hidden wealth: people not in the work force – seniors, teenagers, children, the disabled, the unemployed – whose energy and capacity have been tapped by Time Banking for over a quarter century to strengthen fragile families, rebuild community, enhance health, promote trust, restore hope.
I tried to express the benefits of Time Banking in a kind of meditation I wrote called “Time Banking Math”:
We take halting steps, one by one by one
Our math is simple: one equals one equals one
One is tiny, the smallest absolute
But absolute is absolute
To be human is what we do and what we are
To care, to love, to reach out, to come to each other’s rescue
To grieve, to celebrate, to reach consensus,
To stand up for what’s right, to stand against what we know is wrong
These are not acquired, though they may be honed
They are in our DNA — They are our being and our doing
Our shaping and creating and weaving
That’s what one hour of our being means
We stand for what it means to be human
And human beings are not chattel
There are domains which are above market, beyond price
Family, loved ones, justice, democracy, our planet,
all that is holy
Not for sale at market price, at any price
One hour, our piece of eternity.
Fleeting but nonetheless, precious, sacred, eternal
That is what Time Banking means, declares, affirms and reaffirms
We are — and We will not be diminished.
Let it be.
[…] Edgar S. Cahn | Time Banking: A currency based on community […]