One Civic Act

The Buy Nothing Somerville community has been enormously rewarding. I’m really grateful to have been an admin for three years now and to shepherd its monumental growth. Growth has its limits, however. Today, I built Buy Nothing Somerville (#2), a parallel group that will eventually take over as the new publicly facing Buy Nothing Somerville group. We’ll get our admins trained and launch the group soon.

Today, I made a Kiva loan to a grocer in Gisagara, Rwanda. The business is located near a refugee camp, most customers are refugees and he has hired six refugee employees.

Today, I made a donation of books to More Than Words , which is so much more a used book store. More Than Words works with youth in the foster care system, court involved, homeless, or out of school to get them involved with different aspects of running a business. Great organization.

Today, I finished watching the Green Loan Roundtable, hosted by the Greater Boston Association of Realtors sustainability group. The presentation by a Freddie Mac representative was particularly interesting, with empirical data on home value premiums of 3-5% for more energy efficient homes, and the lower delinquency rates for homeowners in energy-rated homes. And there is a wide array of new lending products available for efficiency improvements.

Two years ago, I invested some savings in CNote , an intermediary that channels investment to community development financial institutions (CDFIs). I increasingly believe that such place-based investments can have a real impact. Today, I channeled more savings into my CNote account.

Today, I attended a pitch session for the participants in the most recent cohort of Start.coop’s cooperative incubator program . Six really interesting companies and some opportunities for investors large and small.

Today, I made a kiva loan to a soil health restoration business in Colorado. Regenerative food-waste and gardening practices will help us sequester more carbon (thus mitigate climate change) and make nutrient dense food more accessible for all. Glad to support businesses that are moving this forward.

Today, I connected with several potential admins to chat about some potential changes to Buy Nothing Somerville. We’ve grown to over 5,500 members, which is getting a bit too large. We’ve got a plan; just have to figure out how to pull it off now.

Today, I made a Kiva loan to an entrepreneur starting what may be the only ethnic media outlets for Pacific Islanders in the US. They intend to represent the Pacific Islander community through contemporary and islanesian indigenous music, and content from DJs and social influencers.

Today, I made Kiva loan to Candace , a Mississippi caterer looking for a small loan to get her Black-owned, woman-owned business off the ground. Today, I also joined a city council meeting (online, of course), during which our Mayor presented the 2021 budget to the council.

The state is about to go on lockdown, due to the Covid-19 crisis. Small retailers and independent restaurants will be the ones most hurt, yet they also make the character of our neighborhoods real. Today, I bought gift certificates from local businesses, in an effort to infuse a little cash into their balance sheets and help them survive the pandemic in some small way.

There’s been quite a discussion on the Buy Nothing Somerville forum about how we should respond to Covid-19. There are legitimate concerns about transmission risk in exchanges. And there are potential benefits to help people who will be financially and logistically stretched by the pandemic. Today, I listened to Buy Nothing members, consulted with other Buy Nothing admins around the world, and wrote an announcement to the Buy Nothing Somerville community. We won’t be shutting down but we are asking everyone to be very diligent.

Today, I dialed into a webinar on electric vehicles, hosted by the Green Energy Consumers Alliance. Notably, I wanted to learn what incentives are in place. I had no idea, actually, that the Green Energy Consumers Alliance had significant discounts in place through its Drive Green program .

Today, I made another Kiva loan, this one to an avocado farmer in Peru. It’s my 18th Kiva loan, to recipients now in seven countries.

Today, I spent some time cleaning a few items in the Buy Nothing Somerville community that I co-admin on Facebook.

Last year, I switched my default browser from Google to Ecosia , because I’m not 100% comfortable with everything Google represents. I’ve since switched from Chrome to Firefox. Today, I took another step toward weening myself from Google by installing the Ecosia extension on Firefox.

Climate Neutral is a new organization that hopes to make it easier for small and mid-size businesses to measure, reduce and offset their emissions. And if more consumers recognize their certification, it makes the process more valuable for companies. Today, I made offset my own emissions for a year, via Climate Neutral’s Kickstarter campaign .

Today, I posted a new announcement to the Buy Nothing Somerville community. It was long overdue. I can see a drift in the posts toward a tone of where you can get free stuff, or recycling options, or donations to organizations. While we appreciate the spirit of those posts, Buy Nothing is about gifting among people, so those kinds of posts are forbidden. I think we’ll need to continue to do more care and feeding of the community to keep things in line.

I just returned from a ten-day trip involving flights from Boston to Las Vegas (via Los Angeles) and a whole lot of driving, from Vegas to the Grand Canyon to Zion National Park to the Hoover Dam and back to Vegas. That’s about 770 miles of driving. Still, the airplane travel was an order of magnitude worse in terms of carbon emissions. Today, I bought carbon offsets to reduce the impact of this trip.

Today, I made a Kiva loan to Deevabits Green Energy Ltd. Deevabits is a Nairobi based company that aims to sell solar products to 12,000 households in rural Kenya, where a typical family makes less than $5 a day and lights their homes with kerosene. The loan is a bridge loan so Deevabits can buy inventory; it’s a little higher risk than other Kiva loans, but with a high potential impact.