Jennifer Turner never sought to start a movement. Turner, founder and director of the Louisville TimeBank, just wanted to do something positive in and for her community. One night last year, she and her husband, Joseph, happened to have the television tuned to PBS when a documentary caught their attention. The one-hour show, Fixing The Future, follows host David Brancaccio around the nation as he interviews people with innovative ideas about growing the local economy through partnerships. One group he visits is a TimeBank in Portland, Maine, started by Richard Rockefeller. At the time the Turners watched Fixing The Future, Jennifer felt like she was just waking up to what was happening in the world around her, and she didn’t like what she saw. But she did like what she saw happening in Portland. “I started out thinking, ‘I hope we have a TimeBank [in Louisville],’ Then I kept dipping my toe in the water, learning what was involved in starting one.” One day, Jennifer gathered her husband and his sister, whose name is also Jennifer Turner, and asked them if they wanted to work together to start a TimeBank in Louisville. Their response was an enthusiastic “Yeah!”
Around the time the Turners decided to start a TimeBank organization in Louisville, they quickly discovered that a regional training conference was scheduled in Wisconsin. The three registered to attend, went to the TimeBank’s USA website – the national hub for all local TimeBank resources – and ordered guidebooks for all three of them. Jennifer read everything she could on TimeBanking, visiting as many community TimeBank websites as possible, for inspiration and education.
After the three Turners returned from Wisconsin, they began planning and organizing. Jennifer works two jobs, one as a server at Meridian Café and another at The Café on Brook Street. She also has an eight-year-old daughter as well as a part-time Human Services student at Kentucky Community and Technical College System. Nevertheless, she spent all of her free time establishing a Meetup.com page as well as a Facebook group to start attracting members to the new TimeBank. She considers her husband, a glazier, and sister-in-law, a certified yoga instructor, co-founders and co-directors. But at the first orientation meeting in January of 2012, Jennifer introduced the 30 attendees to the idea of TimeBanking, led the activities and signed up members.
“I’m really an introvert,” she tells me, “I avoid social situations, but I’m glad I’ve gotten involved with [the TimeBank] because it has helped me overcome it.”
In addition to her co-directors, Jennifer relies on a small handful of friends – an unofficial board of directors – who have helped her with administrative responsibilities. Stephanie Barnett, a healthcare consultant, is helping the organization to achieve its nonprofit status, while Lynn Green, social media guru and owner of Zen Mama Media, is helping the TimeBank create a webpage.
The response to both the TimeBank Meetup and Facebook pages was “really quick,” which surprised Jennifer.
“I thought we were going to have to sell [the idea] to people. My friends are all skeptics!” But the feedback was positive and reinforced her notion that Louisvillians are interested in new answers to the economy. At least 40 people hooked into the Meetup page and were busy exchanging ideas. By the time the organization held its first orientation in mid-January, 155 people had joined the Facebook group and a diverse group of 30 people gathered in the basement of Clifton Unitarian to learn how to become members. This has all been accomplished through word of mouth. Jennifer doesn’t want to advertise for members until they streamline the membership process and gauge how the first few exchanges have worked.
For now, Jennifer is operating the Louisville TimeBank virtually. Members can sign up on the organization website or at upcoming community events. She hopes to hold regular monthly potlucks and Clifton Univeral Unitarian Church has offered to host. All administrative work is handled by Jennifer during the few spare minutes she squeezes between jobs, school and parenting and takes place on her home computer and one day a week in Stephanie Barnett’s Bardstown Road office. One day, she would love to work full-time as a paid employee of the Louisville TimeBank, as well as have an office accessible to the public, where people could sign up as members on-site. But for now, she is satisfied that the organization is growing and attracting members eager to get started.
“I’ve always been interested in making a difference,” Jennifer explained. “I just didn’t know how. [The TimeBank] is something concrete. You’re actually doing something for someone. It’s tangible, immediate gratification. It really lit a fire under me.”
–Amy Miller
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