Become a part of Seacoast Local—we need you!

• Become a business member: Local independent businesses and nonprofit community organizations support our education campaign by becoming members. We provide materials that you can use to help spread the word, including window decals for business members. We will also add your listing to our online directory.
• Support the Goals of Seacoast Local and a local, living economy. Learn more by checking out our recommended reading list.
• Help Us Lead: We're building a core group of board members and community leaders to shape our work in 2010 and beyond. Help us lead one of our core projects. The more we collaborate, the more we can do.
  
  • Citizen Membership: How can more people join this effort? In what ways can they contribute most effectively? Membership is a large part of this, but this is also a place to explore opportunities for other community projects, such as advocacy groups, art projects, a local currency program, etc. that could build equity in our mission. Contact: write to members (at) seacoastlocal.org. 
  • (H)EAT: In 2009, local businesses led the community in donating 10,000 meals and 10,000 gallons of fuel assistance to neighbors in need. Can you help this year? contact tholbrook (at) seacoastlocal.org.
    
  • Seacoast Local Business Exchange: We're looking for business members and local residents to form a steering committee, to help with a membership drive, to serve existing members, and to help raise community awareness through specific projects. Contact: Mark Sullivan (msullivan) or Pam Morrison (pmorrison) (at) seacoastlocal.org.
  • If there's an area where you want to contribute that you don't see listed here, let us know. If you'd like us to email an invitation to a friend or colleague, we can do that, too. Write to us at  members (at) seacoastlocal.org.
• Come to a Seacoast Local event: A speaker series, roundtable discussions and events like the business Meet-Ups are ways for members and supporters to meet. They create opportunities for people to learn more and get involved. Check the Events page for announcements of upcoming events. All events are open to the public.

Think of Seacoast Local as an umbrella for a variety of activities that help support the mission. Core group members originate programs they are interested in, and work with other group members to make sure the project is appropriate to our mission and is successfully implemented.

The hope is that as we complete more and more of these projects, the name “Seacoast Local” earns the kind of cache that allows us to be an important force in local policies concerning environment, culture, business, etc. A proven track record as an organization will also help us qualify for grants and sponsors that an individual might not be able to obtain working alone.

We don’t want to re-invent the wheel, so a lot of what we do is work with organizations that already exist in the community to boost their effectiveness through increased marketing and by building useful connections that didn't exist before. One of the easiest ways to further our mission is by raising awareness—among community members, business owners, and city policy makers—about how individual actions shape the world we live in. This idea seems obvious, but it’s the cornerstone of effective action.

For a hint at what we might accomplish, take a look at Sustainable Connections in Bellingham, Wash. These folks have a few years head start on us, and you can see that the range of projects they are working on is truly impressive. We need more like-minded people to help us get there.

A lot of our work so far has been researching, planning and organizing our intentions, ideas and hopes into a coherent structure that can function as a legal non-profit organization but also be flexible and driven enough to actually get things done. While we intend to have many building blocks under our Seacoast Local umbrella, including local business, local food, local energy, local arts and culture, local investment and local non-profits.

Seacoast Local is actually a very low-key, fun group of people. We are business owners, writers, teachers and artists. Our board of directors is responsible for originating new projects and helping out with existing ones. In addition, they help steer the organization philosophically as we grow and move forward. Volunteers help out with various tasks and serve on committees —we'll need a lot more of them as we continue to create new and exciting projects.