March 11th, 2021 marks covid19 one year anniversary of isolation and lockdowns in Canada. The lack of physical contact has made the desire for community connection that much more important. Buy Nothing Project is a community group on Facebook who pride themselves on the sense of giving, caring, and helping one another.
Founded in 2013 in Seattle Washington by Liesl Clark and Rebecca Rockefeller to create a cashless economy and foster community connections. The movement has grown globally with a number of communities across Canada.
The locally managed groups by volunteers are gift economies that inspire its members to give, lend or share goods. In addition to putting reducing, reusing, recycling at the forefront of people's minds, the group is more focused on the lesser known ‘Rs’ – refuse and rethink.
As of February 2021, the Buy Nothing Project has at least 3 million participants in 44 countries, with over 5,500 groups led by more than 11,300 volunteers. Now this is what we call community engagement at its best.
Image by Bianca van Dijk from Pixabay
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