THE RURBAN FRINGE

Save Your Local Economy

What are three local businesses you would hate to lose from your community?  Got them in your mind?  Great.  Okay, now commit to spending $50 amoung those three places each month.  Ta-da!!  You’re saving your local economy!
Sounds simple, doesn’t it?  It is … and all it takes is you.
A growing movement called the 3/50 project [...]

The Rurban Fringe ‘Eat Local’ Challenge: Day 100

That’s a wrap, folks!  I’ve reached the end of the challenge … but not without a few struggles, highlights, and revelations along the way.  I’d like to take some time to reflect on what it meant for me, personally, to consciously think about the purchase and consumption of local food items over a period of time … [...]

The Rurban Fringe ‘Eat Local’ Challenge OR Why Supporting Your Neighbours Has Never Been So Tasty

After a long winter, I’m excited that our local farmer’s market is finally ready for the season!
With the explosion of interest in eating local, we – as consumers – have an ever increasing choice of products and ways to shop for locally grown and produced items.
Practically speaking, local food production can be thought of in concentric circles that [...]

Reasons to Engage Your Community

Build Connections – Strengthen, deepen and expand relationships and better connect people and resources.
Advance Mission – Serve your organization’s core reason for being.
Build Relevance – As you interact with others, their interests and aspirations, you become an increasing part of their lives and matter more to them.
Increase Value – The greater your impact on others [...]

Living Backwards

Are you a heyoka?
The Lakota tradition of the heyoka – a contrarian or ’sacred clown’ – fits in well with the concept of community-building, as heyokas were those in the tribe charged with challenging people’s thinking and shaking up the status quo.
At a sundance, a heyoka might dance backwards around the young men, or sashay [...]