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Program Aims to Draw Columbia, County Closer

(The Howard County Times) --

Officials at two Howard County nonprofit groups are hoping a unique community volunteer program can help improve the bond between Columbia and the rest of the county.

The nonprofit Columbia Association and the Horizon Foundation, Howard County's largest philanthropic organization, are working together to start a volunteer initiative in the county called "time banking."

Under the program, residents help neighbors with services such as tutoring or leaf raking, thereby earning credits called "time dollars" that can be used to receive work in return.

CA will initiate a two-year trial in Columbia, while the Horizon Foundation will start the program in another location in the county that is still to be determined.  Officials of both groups hope they eventually can initiate the program in communities countywide.

CA has proposed to spend $56,000 in fiscal 2007 and $61,000 in fiscal 2008 to operate the program.  The money would pay to operate the program.

Horizon is working on a cost estimate of its version of the program, Horizon Foundation president Richard Krieg said, although officials said CA and Horizon Foundation will split the cost of the program.

The program works by paying residents in a community a "time dollar" for every hour of volunteer work they perform.  The time is deposited in a database and can be withdrawn when needed to "pay" for the talents and services of another volunteer.

Krieg hopes the program will foster more interaction between Columbia residents and those in the rest of the county.

A similar version of time banking used in Anne Arundel County allows residents to help the elderly.  Time banking also could be used to teach residents languages or create interaction between young and old residents, Krieg said.

"This program has the potential to break down barriers between Columbia and the rest of Howard County," Krieg said.

In Howard County, some tensions has existed between Columbia and the rest of Howard County since the planned community was created nearly 40 years ago, according to Joshua Feldmark, chairman of CA's Board of Directors.

Some Columbia residents and those from outside the planned community tend not to trust one another, he said.
  
Andre DeVerneil, of the Interfaith Affordable Housing Coalition, claims that many people questioned whether Columbia developer James Rouse could actually create Columbia.

After it was founded, Columbia was seen as politically liberal, while most of the rest of the county saw itself as more conservative, said DeVerneil, who added that he does not claim to be an authority on the matter.

No problems, Feaga says

Howard County Council member Charles Feaga, a west county Republican, disagrees that tension exists between Columbia residents and those from elsewhere.

"It's just not there," Feaga, a life-long county resident, said.  "There is no need to try and address something or instigate something that isn't there now.  It sounds to me like someone has too much time on their hands."

Time dollar banking was first envisioned by Edgar Cahn, a law and social justice professor who founded the law school at the University of the District of Columbia, according to Feldmark, Krieg and the Web site of the Time Dollar Institute, through which Cahn promotes the program.

The program is being used in communities in Chicago; Maine; Washington, D.C.; and Great Britain, according to Krieg and Cahn's Web site.

E-mail Andrei Blakely at ablakely@patuxent.com