Washington city helps residents, merchants with wooden money
Washington city helps residents, merchants with wooden money
The salad dressing, butter, turkey, dog food and toothbrush totaled $24.97.
Laurie Mahlenbrei handed the cashier a slice of wood marked $25, and walked out with her groceries.
The wooden currency only works in the small city of Tenino, Washington. It is part of an effort to help Tenino residents and local merchants get through the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic. The city created a similar program in the 1930s during the Great Depression. Now, it has brought back the idea. Using money the city set aside for emergencies, the city is giving people in need up to $300 per month in wooden currency to spend.
Just about every business in town is accepting the wooden currency, including restaurants and gas stations. The currency is made of maple wood and is about the thickness and size of an index card. It is printed on the same 1890s-era press that once printed the Depression currency and the local newspaper.
Businesses in town can exchange the wooden currency for real dollars at City Hall. Or, they can sell it on the side. Some merchants said they have been offered three times the face value from coin collectors around the country.
Keeping The Money In The Community
"The city could have given out debit cards or cash, but we don't know where that money is going to go," said Tyler Whitworth, former president of the local business organization. "This is one of the ways we could keep the money here in the community."
Tenino is about a 25-minute drive from the state capital, Olympia. It has a population of around 1,800 people. In the early 1900s, Tenino was a bustling boom town. The stone from its several quarries was in great demand, as it was needed to help rebuild Seattle, Washington, and San Francisco, California, following devastating fires in those two cities. Back then, there were more hotels and businesses in Tenino.
Nowadays there are no hotels, and the quiet downtown is just a row of shops.
"We're a small community that relies on a lot of tourism during the summer," said Mayor Wayne Fournier, who came up with the plan to use the wooden currency again. "Now everything's been shut down. Our businesses, our restaurants, antique stores, they're not going to have the traffic. There's no assistance available for them. We are on our own."
Mahlenbrei is one of about 12 people who applied for the financial assistance in the program's early days. She is a school bus driver. The company she works for has continued paying her for her normal routes, she said, so she cannot collect unemployment. After losing a job, people in the U.S. can file for unemployment with the government. The government temporarily provides money to cover costs while you look for another job.
City Has Found A Way To Help Its Residents
However, Mahlenbrei's current income is not enough to get by on. Ordinarily, she would be making twice as much, because along with her regular route, she also would be driving students on field trips and teams to games. Due to the pandemic, these extra trips have dried up, along with the extra pay.
Mahlenbrei had to begin taking Social Security early. Social Security is a government program. Americans who work have money taken from their paycheck and put into Social Security. When a person retires, they regularly receive money from the government through Social Security. Requesting benefits before retirement reduces the amount of money you will receive after you retire. Mahlenbrei had to make this decision. Furthermore, the company that provided her hearing aid has taken it back because she can't make the monthly payments.
She used $150 of her first monthly aid to pay her utility bill.
"When they came up with this, I was the first person in line down there," said Mahlenbrei, who is 63 years old. "I have no money. This really helps."
Maria Williams, the owner of Tenino Coffee Bistro, said she was proud of the city for figuring out on its own how to help its own residents.
"Most cities go to the next level up when they need help," she said. "But this is all about what we can do for ourselves."
What drew me to this article is the title of “wooden money” . I’m so curious about if the “wooden money” are real currency that people can use in their life? I have to find a answer. I clicked the article and read it .
The article reminds me of a game called Monopoly, it seems all players are live in one town and purchase everything with the Monopoly’s currency. All the currency circulate in the town, Players can be merchants to get a loan or mortgage from local bank then earn more money to defeat the opponents and make a bustling boom town. Many of rules and management systems are similar to the Tenino, Washington. I don’t have many knowledge about economic development , but it can be seen from this article that the “ wooden money” is helping people who live in the Tenino, Washington. During the pandemic there are many people lose their jobs and many business have collapsed. The “wooden money” won’t devalue along with the American economic recession and it can protect the resident of Tenino, Washington’s assets. “Wooden money” may not be the best approach to help all people in this hard time, but it is suitable for this little town to maintain their essential livelihood.
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