With the downturn of the USD causing food and energy prices to rise, more communities are finding themselves short of monies to keep their local economies strong and their local workforces active. At a time when there's more than enough to do and a plethora of unmet wants and needs, money is an almost inescapable obstacle to getting things done and realizing the quality of life we desire.

There's absolutely *no* reason why a community should have to make sacrifices when it comes to improving itself, and *no* reason why its people should have to cut corners at home while Wall St. pads its pockets with our hard-earned dollars. Local currency can change the game. Communities across the nation are realizing how they can stimulate local economic development, motivate new labor into the community improvement arena, and weave a more tightly knit social fabric of relationships between constituencies while leveling the economic playing field between rich and poor.

Entirely new kinds of monies have been evolving in the background of the ongoing macroeconomic collapse, one of which being a behavior-based incentives model recently piloted in Fairfield, Iowa. Through positive contributions to the community's well being (via program sponsored social orgs on the ground) people earn private scrip which gives them access to an exclusive set of offerings in the merchant community and from whomever else recognizes the value of the contribution implicit within the medium. In other words, people earned coupons for proactivity in community enrichment. See www.HometownHeroRewards.com for more.

Tuscaloosa can and should benefit from implementing a local scrip in the "Hero Rewards" mold. Any idea with collective buy-in posted here or elsewhere can be supported through incentives for activity. Tuscaloosa can supplement its dollar stores and stimulate local economic growth while bringing together the peoples of its rich cultural heritage around a socially equitable win-win model.