Swap meets are increasingly affecting life in Ithaca, “for barter or worse,” said Ari Moore. With an aim of encouraging sustainability and the idea of trading to fulfill one’s exact needs, swap meets in the community have flourished since their inception in May 2009.

Swap meets are held monthly, usually at a community member’s house. At each event, participants speak individually regarding the items each brought and their specific needs that they hope to fulfill through the swap meet. After that, the participants proceed to barter and trade their resources with each other at their own discretion.

Shira Golding ’02 is the main organizer of these events. Golding is a member of the ShareTompkins group, which, according to its website, “help[s] folks share and trade goods and services in Ithaca and Tompkins County.” Along with a panel of community members from the group, Golding channels her energy to guide the arrangement and publicization of these events. She wants to introduce a way for people in the community to find and share their resources.

Lea Elleseff, a close supporter of the swap meets and friend of Golding, said simply, “Swap meets are incredible.” A member of the Dacha Project, whose principal aim among its six members is to create a living area that is completely environmentally sustainable in Ithaca, Elleseff said that the swap meets have helped the Project tremendously. At a recent swap meet, the Project received a normally pricey industrial sink among other equipment in exchange for raking leaves.

“To me, that exchange signified how ready we are to exchange goods for goods and services practically,” she pointed out.

Additionally, Golding is working with ShareTompkins to create an online toolkit with the idea that anyone anywhere in the United States, or even the world, can utilize it to arrange a swap meet of his or her own. The resource guide also helps to “increase access to achieve sustainability,” Moore said.

Moore said that the “idea came from sustainability, not just environmentally, but also economically [as well as] building solidarity and community.”

Additionally, swap meets offer much that other similar outlets, such as Craigslist, cannot — a personal and social connection. Marina Gershon, the host of the first swap meet, noted that many people come solely for the social aspect of the events. This, along with posters and fliers put up around the city of Ithaca and the ShareTompkins website, have been the sources of publicity thus far for the swap meets.

With the continual use of posters, e-mails and publicity through the ShareTompkins website, Golding hopes to increase the visibility of the swap meets.

The group recently branched out last month to include a swap meet in September held in Lansing, NY., the first outside of Ithaca thus far. They hope to have more in other cities in the future.

“The big goal is to get more swap meets in more counties,” she said.

The idea of sharing not only goods but also services has flourished through these events. Anything from local food or homemade soap to babysitting services is welcome at swap meets. Golding herself trades out her own website and graphic design skills in exchange for food and other provisions that she needs.

In this way, community members such as Sara Rostanpoui have also been able to meet their exact needs through the swap meets. She initially found out about the swap meets through posted flyers and is now on the listserv for the group and their events.

Rostanpoui, who participated in the latest swap meet held in the Ithaca Commons Amphitheatre on Oct. 18, is satisfied with both her exchange and her experience at a previous swap meet a couple months ago. On Sunday, she swapped a big wall hanging she had obtained from Peru. Although she said that it was beautiful and that she valued it, there was simply no place to hang it.

Rostanpoui was wary about selling or swapping her wall hanging via other exchange networks because she was concerned it would end up in an underappreciated home. Since she was able to meet the future owner of her Peruvian wall hanging, she could ensure that it went to a good home. She swapped the wall hanging with a man for home-grown produce.

Elleseff brought homemade cans of salsa, Asian pear jelly and apple butter made with apples picked from abandoned trees. She hoped to trade her goods for herbal tea, a good book or perhaps even a warm headband to help her get through the winter.

Although the swap meets are currently largely centered on bartering and trading, Golding hopes to expand events to focus “not on selling and bartering, but giving away.”

Moore added that their goal is to create “really free markets,” where everything is totally and literally free of charge. She believes that the residents of the community are more than ready to join in to channel the “spirit of mutual aid” in order to utilize the available goods and resources to the best of everyone’s ability.

“It’s just a matter of finding where you fit,” she pointed out.

In the future, ShareTompkins is planning to have a holiday swap in early December. This swap will be gift-oriented, with a focus on having as much free goods as possible to exchange. For more information, visit http://sharetompkins.wordpress.com/.