Originally posted on the Daily Freeman by Mike Stribl
KINGSTON, N.Y. — The Hudson Valley Current is many things. Primarily, it's a form of alternative currency that is an engine for an economic ecosystem running through the Hudson Valley.
But, as tangible to touch as the paper bills the current is now printed on, area residents can embrace what the HVC has to offer: sharing in the abundance of food and cultures of the community through the goods and services offered by the Kingston-based nonprofit organization.
On Tuesday, Sept. 15, the HVC debuts its first store: Tilda's Kitchen and Market, at 630 Broadway in Kingston.
But, as tangible to touch as the paper bills the current is now printed on, area residents can embrace what the HVC has to offer: sharing in the abundance of food and cultures of the community through the goods and services offered by the Kingston-based nonprofit organization.
On Tuesday, Sept. 15, the HVC debuts its first store: Tilda's Kitchen and Market, at 630 Broadway in Kingston.
Tilda is not a who, by the way — it's a what.
"Our logo is the tilde, which is the little squiggle (~) above the 'n' in Spanish. We have three tildes as our logo," Director Chris Hewitt explained. The three tildes resemble a wave, or current, on water.
"This is not called a restaurant," Hewitt noted. "It's called a community kitchen, because its purpose is educational and feeding as many people as we can out of here, whether you have money or you don't.
"This is what I call pay it forward combined with pay with what you can," he said. "We have no barriers to sponsored meals and we allow the generosity of the community to pay it forward. We have a whole case of meals that we will be giving out today."
The Kitchen will feature the community's restaurants in its breakfasts and lunches, and there will be educational workshops in the evenings. The store side is considered more of a trading post, with area vendor displays. The kitchen and market will offer more than 100 food products, locally-sourced produce and a variety of health-related and professional services to HVC members and the general public.
In its support of Black- and brown-owned businesses, by working with companies like Season Delicious at the Center for Creative Education at the Energy Square Building, HVC will use its kitchen as a commissary kitchen, cooking things there to be reheated at CCE.
"Our slogan is 'Community inspired cuisine,' because we don't want to come in with a food concept and force this community to eat what we think is good food," Hewitt said. "We want to make what they know is good food. We've identified four types of cuisine that we will be featuring here and six chefs on our chef pattern."
Asian, Caribbean, Creative American and Latin cuisine will be featured from local restaurants.
"We're requiring all of our counter help to be bilingual and speak Spanish, but also embracing the Mayan community who speak Kʼiche,ʼ to have workshops here," Hewitt said. "We want to create a safe space for people to come and create crafts where they can feel that they are not being rushed or pushed away."
There is a garden on the side of Tilda's and HVC got permission from the city to plant the island across from the building to be an "edible landscape" in partnership with Future Fruits.
The HVC's 450 members offer everything from food, graphic design, legal services, carpentry, web development, editing, weeding, gardening, massage, etc. Seed Song Farm and Center in Kingston, Outdated Cafe on Wall Street and Hawthorne Valley Farm in Columbia are just some of the many businesses with a sign in their doors reading, "We now accept Hudson Valley Current."
The current, which has been around since 2013, is considered a complementary currency. As required by the Internal Revenue Service, one current is equal to one dollar.
"The IRS calls us a barter-exchange," said Hewitt, who has become one of the leading thinkers around barter exchanges in the world. He spoke last year at the RAMICS (Research Association on Monetary Innovation and Community and Complementary Systems) International Congress in Japan.
"The current has taken off since March. People from around the world now call me, asking "How can we start a community currency?'" Hewitt said. "The current is innovating and shifting the currency world in very unique ways.
"Right now, with just small moms and pops (stores) involved, 700,000 currents have been exchanged in seven years and it's accelerating. The first year may have been 20,000 and each year it becomes more and more.
"I enjoy using the current. I try my best to use the current, because I know that my money will then stay local," said Hewitt, who had currents mixed in with regular bills in his pocket.
You can get the Hudson Valley Current from the App Store, which has now been updated with QR codes for touch-free payments. A member, who gets an initial 300-current "line of trust," can also text-to-pay.
Because people tend to believe in something they can physically touch, HVC issued real current currency last October in denominations of 1, 5, 10 and 20.
The colorful bills feature a native animal on each with a picture of their habitat on the back and information on their diet in silhouette. The 1 has the rusty patched bumblebee, the 5 has the blue heron, the 10 has the blue-tailed skink (the only lizard indigenous to Upstate New York) and the rainbow trout is featured on the 20.
On each reads: "This current bill keeps money local when used to purchase goods and services at participating locations."
The HVC also publishes the monthly Livelihood magazine and runs Satisfy Hunger, a regional initiative that provides produce and healthy meals to social services to address food security in the Hudson Valley. The HVC expanded into Dutchess County in 2014 and into Columbia County last November.
"We're allowing the flow of the current to guide our growth, but we also need to be wary of stretching ourselves too thin," said Hewitt, who sees HVC venturing next to Orange and Greene counties. "We're expanding into like-minded communities, because that's the path of least resistance."
In July, HVC started a farmer's market in Kingston's Ponckhockie neighborhood, Saturdays in the parking lot of Community Action off Delaware Avenue.
"For every two dollars they spend there, they get one current in cash in return," Hewitt noted. "We're using incentives now to give cash to the community. For $24 you can fill a whole bag with as much produce as you want but, because of this incentive program, you get 12 currents back. Then you can bring the bag back the next week and you're not paying for the bag."
Adams Fairacre Farm, Mother Earth, Farm Stop and the Bard College Farm are among the many merchants and organizations supporting the HVC's work.
"The concept of the current has not been fully embraced yet, because it's new and people are wary about money," Hewitt said. "Our biggest challenge is educating people about how the current works, which is why we had to move quickly on opening a store.
"What we're doing here is we're bringing everything to one space, so that you could shop here on Broadway and not have to travel the whole region," he said.
"Our goal is to have five of these stores in five years, because we're stabilizing this community by embracing the community. We're stabilizing this community's economy by embracing the people who live here. There's tons of value in every neighborhood, but sometimes it's pushed aside when gentrification happens."