Programs and partnerships
- Access to the Arts
- Access to Diversity
- Acess to Education
- Access to Healthcare
- Access to Weatherization
- What's your passion?
Hour Exchange Portland is excited to offer our members access to some of the best arts and entertainment in the area! Many professional artists and performers offer their services for time credits. Hour Exchange offers artisans and crafters the opportunity for mentorship, workshops, group discounts and group marketing. Hour Exchange artists can also display their art and sell their crafts during the First Friday Art Walk here at the TIME Gallery. A number of local arts venues make a list of shows and a number of tickets available in exchange for time credits. To see what shows are available login to your account and view the Eblast News Wall. Participating arts organizations include:
1. Lucid Stage
2. Mayo Street Arts
3. Portland Ovations
4. Space Gallery
Hour Exchange Portland has a partnership with Catholic Charities to engage the refugee and immigrant populations of Portland and connect with the greater Portland community. You can help someone study for their citizenship test, join our English Conversation Circle, learn new languages, expose yourself to new new food and cultures and more. You can contact Sarah Davis at Catholic Charities for more info.
Education and self improvement are the keys to success. You can learn new skills, take classes and get private tutors as a member of Hour Exchange Portland. Take sustainability workshops for time credits with member organizations like Portland Permaculture or go to our yearly skill share day of music, food, and fun we call HourFest.
Health care is one of the most utilized service in Hour Exchange Portland, our members have exchanged over 25,000 hours of health care. There are more than 30 different health services currently offered through Hour Exchange, ranging from comprehensive mental health and counseling services, to herbal medicine, traditional allopathic medicine consults, energy therapies, exercise partners, nutritional consults, bodywork, midwifery and childbirth support, and meditation. There are also many services available through Hour Exchange that can help support you during an illness or injury, like transportation to medical appointments, or a fresh-cooked meal delivered to your home.
Hour Exchange has a partnership with True North, a nonprofit center for functional medicine and the healing arts devoted to integrating state-of-the-art medical care with proven complementary therapies. Income-eligible members of Hour Exchange can access health services at True North with the time credits they have earned, and regardless of income, all Hour Exchange members receive a 10% discount on True North health services and at the True North store. To become a patient at True North contact them at 207-781-4488.
Hour Exchange also works with Turn the Tide Health Collaborative, a network of complementary and alternative health care practitioners providing care for the uninsured and underinsured in Maine. Payment is a “pay it forward” donation of your time doing community service or service to others. Turn the Tide hosts monthly health clinics that are open to Hour Exchange and the greater public.
Last winter Hour Exchange Portland members weatherized nearly 100 homes. Check out our weatherization blog for more info on Step-One Weatherization, home improvements that have the biggest impact at the lowest cost. Work is focused on proper air sealing and low cost energy saving tasks found throughout the house. Wire/pipe penetrations, bulkhead doors, windows, water tank and pipes in the basement. Chimney chase, recessed lights, and hatch in the attic. Windows, exterior doors, outlets, baseboards, and fireplace in the living area. All work that has a huge impact on energy and heating efficiency and that are inexpensive and easy to do in a few hours.
You can get involved in any of these programs to help sustain and grow them, recruit others to join them, or utilize Hour Exchange to create your own program. In the past members have utilized Hour Exchange to create their own community building programs like recycling, garden swaps, computers for kids, and you can too! Working together there is no limit to what we can do.
