REBUILDING communities that are RESILIENT & READY to weather the storm - learn more...

Rutgers University has partnered with hOurworld to provide a proactive network of community exchanges that would enable individuals to give and receive needed services in their county of residence. In times of individual or community need, whether it be an economic downturn, emergency or disaster, family, friends, neighbors, community organizations and businesses are typically the first responders. Establishment of active relief networks of neighbors helping neighbors is a key to a stronger, healthier, more resilient community.
 
Our County State Strong Community Exchange is part of the sharing economy where time, or person-hour, is used as currency. Members receive and provide gifts of time and talent with other members of the exchange. Person-hours invested doing work for someone else can be “spent” on any service offered by any other member of the community exchange.
 
Person-hours exchanged are recorded by the members using a proprietary computer program where members post their needs as well as the skills they wish to provide. Community exchange coordinators, which are also members, can assist members that are off-line to relay services. The more members within the community exchange equates to more skills and services available to the community.
 
Getting to know and be able to help and be helped by neighbors makes the community a place to want to be in; giving that nice, warm and fuzzy feeling. Members will also know who to call when there is a dire need for assistance.  Whether it be a plumbing leak or flooding as a result of a hurricane, a neighbor could come quickly to the rescue. So knowing neighbors that are capable and willing to come to your aid is essential both when there are “blue, sunny skies” and when personal, natural or man-made disaster strikes.
 
Please feel free to email for assistance or with any questions. Provide your phone number if you'd like to converse over the phone.

Julie M. Fagan, Ph.D Associate Professor, Rutgers University
County State Strong Community Exchange Coordinator
Email CountyStateStrong@gmail.com

PS. The 'County State Strong' community exchange network is NEW and you may be one of the 1st members. What you could do to help, is communicate with others in your community and tell them about it and request that they sign up as a member. We can give you hours for reaching out to people to start you off with hours accumulated into your account.

If you would like to help coordinate your community network - getting members, potentially running programs, etc., we can work together on that (in addition to being a member, you could become one of the coordinators and earn hours for that as well). Let me know if this interests you (We could really use your help)!

We will be incorporating features that will enable the community exchange to function as an emergency response system. If a county state strong community exchange is not yet in your community and you are interested in establishing one with an emergency response system, please reach out to me.