Swap:

If you swap something with someone, you give it to them and receive a different thing in exchange.

Collins

Many people today are focused on being hyper-independent; this, however, is not how life has always been for everyone.

Have you ever heard of the term “barn raising?” Barn raisings (aka a raising bee) was when a whole community — especially in 18th-19th century North America — would get together to build a barn or other structure. With so many hands at the ready, they could build an entire barn in a day.

No one would be paid for their work, and the whole community was expected to help. Often, finishing would be celebrated with a feast and dance.

The idea of this is that you help your neighbor with the knowledge that you may need that help in the future.

Instead of taking on every task yourself, you lean on a community to take on some of the load. Here are some examples of how some people are working on this:

Seeds and Seedling Swaps

Some communities organize seed swaps, where you have a gathering for people to exchange seeds. This is a great way to swap something you have a lot of for something you have never tried before.

This system is particularly helpful for people who seed save from the previous harvest.

Can’t go with the community option? There are online seed exchanges as well.

Note: in some places, this is illegal. For example, in some of the USA states, patents are held on the seeds themselves. As well as that, there are also laws “intended to protect farmers” from weeds. Some people host these events anyways, while lobbying their local governments to make changes.

Harvest Exchanges / Crop Swaps / Food Swaps

While seed swaps tend to happen before the growing season, harvest exchanges happen during harvest times. By then, you will hopefully have produce of some kind from your garden, and if you have extra, you can exchange it with the produce of someone else. For example, if you grow tomatoes, you could leave with some carrots and apples.

This does not have to be on a large scale, either. You could set up a plan with friends where you each grow something different, then plan to swap at the end of the season.

There are also online options for this as well.

Some of these also expand into finished goods; such as baked food, canned foods, and so on. These are called “Community Food Swaps.” There are online directories for these.

Clothing Swaps

I hope you are getting the idea by now, but just in case, people gather, and exchange clothes that no longer fit or no longer match their style, for clothes they do need.

Putting it simply, the events have tables (organized by clothing type and size) for you to put your clothing onto. You can go to any table, and grab the clothes you need.

If there are any clothes not claimed by the end of the event, they can be donated.

Knowledge Swaps

If you have a skill of some kind, you may be able to swap it for the knowledge someone has on a different subject. For example, if you know how to fix jewelry, that might be worth trading for someone who knows how to mend clothing.

For these, you literally exchange the skills by teaching the other person. Any skill you have, even holding chopsticks properly, could very well be a skill someone wants to learn, so do not doubt yourself.

Work Swaps

Just as it sounds: you exchange a job for a job. For example, let’s say you are good at graphics design but need a sink fixed; you could give a plumber the logo they need for marketing, while they repair your sink.

#communities #communitybuilding