🌎 MY DREAM FOR BUYNOTHINGNDG: A MODEL THE WORLD CAN COPY
I believe BuyNothingNDG can become much more than a place where neighbours give away things they no longer need.
I believe it can become an experiment in what a neighbourhood can be.
The worldwide Buy Nothing movement is built around a wonderfully simple idea: Give. Ask. Share. Express gratitude. But beneath that simplicity is something much more profound. The Buy Nothing Project says that the real wealth created by a gift economy is found in the human connections and trust formed between neighbours.
That is exactly where I would like us to go with BuyNothingNDG.
My dream is to develop our NDG group into such a vibrant, generous, compassionate and connected community that someday people within the larger Buy Nothing Project look at what happened here and say:
“We should try that everywhere.”
Imagine what BuyNothingNDG could become.
A neighbour has a toaster sitting unused in a cupboard. Someone else needs one. Give it.
Someone needs a ladder for twenty minutes. Another neighbour has one. Lend it.
An older person needs help carrying groceries upstairs. Someone nearby has an hour to spare. Give your time.
A newcomer doesn't know anybody in NDG. Give friendship.
Someone is lonely and would love a cup of coffee and conversation. Give your presence.
A child needs a bicycle. Someone's child has outgrown one. Pass it along.
Someone knows how to garden, cook, repair a computer, play guitar, speak French, fix a bicycle or prepare a résumé. Share what you know.
And when somebody makes your day a little better, tell them. Give gratitude.
Because perhaps the greatest untapped resource in NDG isn't money.
It is one another.
The official Buy Nothing philosophy recognizes gifts of goods, time, talent and self. It asks us to think from abundance rather than scarcity and to measure wealth not merely by possessions, but by the connections and trust we create between people. That philosophy fits beautifully with the kind of community I dream of helping create in NDG.
I want BuyNothingNDG to explore just how far we can take it.
Not simply:
“Who wants this chair?”
But also:
“Who can I help today?”
“What do I know that might benefit somebody else?”
“What do I have that I'm not using?”
“What do I need that perhaps one of my neighbours already has?”
And maybe most importantly:
“Who lives around me whom I haven't met yet?”
This is very much connected to the larger work I have been writing about on my blog — my dream of helping transform NDG into an increasingly caring, connected and neighbour-centred community:
And this is our BuyNothingNDG community:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/770818111244217
I don't want to build this alone.
I want us to build it together.
I want your ideas. Your experiments. Your generosity. Your imagination.
Let's discover how many needs can be met simply because neighbours begin looking out for neighbours.
Let's see how much perfectly good material we can keep out of landfills.
Let's discover how many strangers can become acquaintances — and how many acquaintances can become friends.
Let's see whether generosity really is contagious.
And let's document what works so that, someday, perhaps another Buy Nothing community in Toronto, Vancouver, New York, London, Sydney or somewhere we've never heard of can say:
“Look what those people in NDG did. We can do that too.”
That would be something extraordinary.
A little corner of Montreal demonstrating that another way of living together isn't merely possible.
We're already beginning to create it.
One gift.
One favour.
One conversation.
One neighbour.
One act of kindness at a time.
BUY NOTHING. SHARE EVERYTHING WE CAN. KNOW OUR NEIGHBOURS. BUILD COMMUNITY. ❤️
Let's make BuyNothingNDG something worth copying.
Let's show what can happen when an entire neighbourhood begins discovering that its greatest abundance has been there all along:
Each other.
— Ross Harvey
A NuVo World — beginning right here in NDG
© Copyright A NuVo World