When You Want to ‘Buy Local,’ These Programs Make Doing So Easy

You’ve probably heard about community supported agriculture (or CSA) — a program where you pay up front and every week, a box of fresh, locally grown produce appears on your doorstop. Since its initial conception in western Massachusetts in the 1980s, such programs have been popping up across the country.
For consumers, it’s a great way to connect with high quality products and their community. And, due to their popularity, other industries have since jumped on the bandwagon.
One such group is local breweries. As of 2013, there were 1,500 microbreweries in the U.S. producing their own craft beer. While many of us may not know how to get our hands on these beverages, community-supported breweries (CSB) are solving that problem. For a set price, participants can sign up to receive craft beer every month for six to 12 months. Purchases are made directly from the producer, who sometimes throw in a few extra benefits, such as member-only events.
If beer isn’t your thing, community-supported art might be more appealing. In each program, commissioned artists will produce about 50 pieces of work. Patrons can then choose one piece of artwork from each artist, ranging in price from $50 to $500.
The first community-supported art program, the Minnesota-based Springboard for the Arts organization, began five years ago. Today, 40 groups nationwide offer community-supported art programs. One of their key components is interaction: Patrons attend “pick-up parties” where they collect their purchases and meet the featured artists.
Not to be outdone by artists, writers are also getting in on the action. Small, independent publishing houses are making a name for themselves through community-supported publishing programs by offering their members newly-released books fresh off the press or even discounts on all existing titles.
While the products may range in diversity and purpose, the main point is that these programs offer people a way to connect to their local community.
“It’s a model people already understood,” Andy Sturdevant, artists resources director at Springboard for the Arts tells Yes! Magazine. “People like to know where the things they buy come from, whether that’s food or whether that’s artwork.”
And in a world of corporations and big-box stores, that transparency and personal touch is often all that’s needed.
MORE: When Food Is Left Unharvested, This Organization Gleans It and Feeds the Hungry

Community-Owned Internet Access: How These Neighborhoods are Redesigning the Traditional Provider Model

As the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) edges towards a decision that could give Internet service providers permission to charge websites for bandwidth, some communities across the country are rallying together to create a different type of solution.
The high-profile debate between FCC members and broadcasters centers on a proposal allowing broadband companies like Comcast or Verizon to charge websites for special “fast lanes” in the final stage, or “last mile,” of service transmission. In other words, these mega-media conglomerates would be able to determine which sites loader faster or slower based on how much each content provider pays them.
Coupled with the timing of the Time Warner-Comcast merger, critics are concerned the FCC proposal would eliminate net neutrality — a set of rules that enables a free and open internet — altogether, as well as infringe on free press. Companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft have decried the proposal as “a grave threat to the Internet.”
MORE: Every Kid Needs an Internet Connection to Thrive in School. This District Has a Plan to Make It Happen
But the convoluted issue is even more complex for consumers, who can feel beholden to these Internet companies in order to remain plugged in. But that doesn’t have to be the case, as communities like Brooklyn’s Red Hook neighborhood, Kansas City, and St. Louis have illustrated.
Rather than joining the national protest, these three areas have separately launched community-supported broadband initiatives by educating themselves and creating local co-ops to sidestep the traditional Internet service providers, Slate reports. The model is based on community supported agriculture (CSA), or farm shares.
With CSAs, members of the community invest in advance to cover costs of an operation and receive shares of the farm’s profits throughout the crop season. As Slate points out, communities could adopt a similar blueprint in the case of broadband services and leverage purchasing-power to decide who is in control of delivering “last mile” service.
In Brooklyn, the youth nonprofit Red Hook Initiative has created a Digital Stewards program to operate and maintain a community wireless network. The group purchases its bandwidth from high speed Internet service company BKFiber, supporting a local business while training community members to sustain the project.
Kansas City’s Free Network Foundation launched a co-op that owns and operates a community wireless network through purchasing “middle-mile” bulk bandwidth. Meanwhile in St. Louis, WasabiNet has created a wireless mesh network comprised of interconnected wireless routers. Users have different levels of access depending on how much they pay.
Regardless of how the FCC decision pans out, the debate is a chance for communities to redefine the way we are connected by taking charge of their share of the Internet. As Slate smartly points out, Americans should seize this opportunity to create an online sense of their local community instead of relying on big broadband retailers to do the work for them.