Rooted Resources

A Festival About Democratizing Wealth Building Solidarity Localizing Economic Power

KINGSTON : May 12th - 15th, 2022

Rooted Resources

Rooted Resources was a weekend festival that shone a light on localizing economic power to nurture solidarity, awareness, and action.

So much gratitude to everyone who participated and generously contributed their time, talents, ideas, and reflections! This work is ongoing and we look forward to continuing this journey together.

Democratizing wealth, communities, and work is one of the principles of Just Transition that we want to uplift in 2022. Through this gathering we offered a platform to learn from each other, connect with ideas and initiatives, and facilitate the hard and powerful conversations that come with looking at how we might better share resources to shift from individual survival to collective thriving.

We asked big questions to reimagine money and redefine shared resources:

How might we understand money differently, democratize wealth, and see new ways to engage in exchanges that benefit our communities and all life?
What happens when we allow ourselves to explore the commons, land as wealth, cooperatives, community funds, mutual aid, and traditional practices rooted in collective prosperity?

With activists, entrepreneurs, storytellers, community builders, and explorers as our guides, we gathered to learn from the projects underway to create stable, dynamic, just abundance in our communities. We also faced the real fact that there is trauma around money, and brought forward ways to heal, to move away from the scarcity that global capitalism imbeds in us. Lastly, we celebrated the creativity inherent in all of us and took the opportunity to be together in-person! It was amazing.

A collection of posts and reflections on Rooted Resources – a festival and series that shines a light on localizing economic power to nurture solidarity, awareness, and action.

Reflections on the Layers of a Forest Garden

By Carrie Flemming

06.02.22

Rev Dele is a grandmother, spiritual leader, speaker, and permaculturist whose mission is “grounding heaven on earth by strengthening our oneness with Nature.”

Cooperation Over Competition

By Carrie Flemming

06.02.22

We know a future that works for everyone will require radical movement toward equity and community care in every sector of society.

Relocalization and new cultures of work

By Jared Spears

06.01.22

We model tools for community-led change which aim to bring decisions about land use and money issue back to a more human-scale, local exchange.

“Landback” Panel Discussion Summary

By Fiona Otway

05.19.22

A nuanced conversation that often circled back to the inadequacy of the English language when it comes to talking about land.

“Property As Wealth” Panel Discussion Summary

By Fiona Otway

05.19.22

Advantaging Best Practices to Democratize Access to Capital

By Michael B. Marks Ph.D.

05.19.22

An informative and inspiring panel about innovations that move capital downstream to economically distressed communities.

Re-imagining Money Requires Rebuilding Systems

By Amanda Cassiday

05.19.22

“Out of every $1 of SNAP that gets distributed, 53 cents are spent at Amazon, Walmart, and Kroger.” The audience literally gasped.

The Sun Never Says “You Owe Me”

By Amanda Cassiday

05.19.22

Builders, farmers, advocates, artists, business owners and enablers, educators, writers, investors and healers—we joined together to reflect on the idea of reciprocity.

Schedule-at-a-glance

Day	Time	Sessions	Location
Thursday (online)	6:00-7:30pm	Welcome & Orientation	Zoom link provided with registration
Friday (indoors, in-person + streaming)	7:00-9:00pm	Festival Kick-off featuring keynotes by Omar Freilla and Betty Francisco	Bethany Hall at The Old Dutch Church – 272 Wall Street, Kingston
Saturday (outdoors, in-person)	9:30am-4:30pm	All-Day Festival includes over 9 topic-focused sessions, pop-up “Health is Wealth” clinic, food, art, music*	Big Bubble Parking Lot – 718 Broadway, Kingston
Saturday (in-person, inside-outside)	5:00pm-7:00pm	Celebratory reception with light food, beverages, and tunes	GWI Greenhouse – 65 St. James Street, Kingston
Sunday (outdoors, in-person)	10:00am-1:30pm	“Stories of the Future: Envisioning Pathways to Local Economic Power” (interactive workshop/closing session)	Big Bubble Parking Lot – 718 Broadway, Kingston

Festival Sessions

Festival Welcome & Orientation

Join us online on Thursday evening for an official Welcome and Orientation before we gather in-person at the Rooted Resources festival! [...]

Festival Kick-Off! Keynote

We celebrate this first opportunity for many of us to be together in community, in person, in a long time! This evening session sets the tone for the weekend ahead as we begin considering approaches to money and wealth that make more just and equitable communities possible. We'll ask questions like: What does "democratizing wealth" mean? What might it look like if it were realized in our communities? How could we better share resources to shift from individual survival to collective thriving? [...]

Reimagining Money: Alternative Local Currencies and UBI

As inflation and economic inequality dominate the airwaves, we shine a light on experiments in local currencies that are building resilient economic networks to benefit local communities. [...]

Property as Wealth

Private home and land ownership are a primary driver of wealth-building and, conversely, of generational wealth gaps. Join this discussion with panelists whose work addresses the challenges of the current property ownership and housing landscape. [...]

Conflict Resilience in Circle

Why does money often foster so much conflict? If we understand money is an instrument of separation, then the conflict it engenders might be trying to bring us closer, so that together we can heal the original traumas of genocide, land ownership, slavery. If that is so, without conflict resilience, we can't get to healing. Bring your "money conflicts" and together we will practice transforming conflict into resilience and insight, held in the healing space of a community circle. [...]

“Health is Wealth” Pop-up Clinic

The Good Work Institute is partnering with the Holistic Health Community to provide a “Health is Wealth” pop-up clinic at the Rooted Resources Festival on Saturday, May 14. There will be a range of different modalities featured from herbal health consultations to Shamanic Reiki Healing. [...]

Landback

In a country where land is seen as a commodity and a means to generate wealth, what does it mean when the land has been stolen? Democratizing wealth is not an easy topic, and in order to sort it out we must rectify a past filled with enslavement, genocide, brutality and thievery. [...]

Reciprocity

We are inviting folks to come share, listen, and learn about ways people in our communities build reciprocity through mutual exchange to help us all thrive. [...]

Design a Cooperative Business!

Cooperatives are for-profit businesses that bake democratizing wealth and governance into their very DNA. In this interactive session, we go over the basics of what cooperatives are and can be, we journey in teams to design a co-op to solidify our understanding together, and we discuss the role of cooperatives in the Hudson Valley. [...]

Democratizing Access to Community Capital

We want finance to work for people, not the other way around. What are ways that democratizing access to capital can provide new opportunities for abundance and equity in our communities? [...]

Unconference: What’s On Your Mind?

Are there conversations you want to have with other festival attendees about what you're hearing or, perhaps, what you haven't heard yet? This is a space for identifying those topics and engaging with fellow attendees as you share with each other what's on your minds. [...]

At the Root: Our Stories and Values

We all have stories related to money. Whether we grew up with a lot of money or very little, our access to wealth greatly shaped our lives. TMI Project will facilitate a space where, through the use of prompts, participants will free-write and have the opportunity to read. [...]

Mirror Image of Nature: Movement and Metaphor

Drawing on her personal Indigenous lineage and culture, Rev Dele leads us on a journey to nourish a deep connection to land, each other, and a thriving social climate. Through movement, song, and metaphor, we will listen for the ecological lessons that will bring understanding of our role in collectively working towards democratizing wealth. [...]

Stories of the Future: Envisioning Pathways to Local Economic Power

How do we go from a swirl of ideas - and our own reactions to what we have heard and learned - to a sense of collective possibility and clear steps into action? What do we want to do with visions of a future that we want to see manifested? This workshop is an opportunity to work individually and in groups to answer those questions, and emerge with renewed purpose and mutual support. [...]