New push behind charitable Toronto Dollar
BY BRAD MACKAY

With less than a week left to go in the retail bonanza known as Christmas, shoppers suffering pangs of consumer guilt can opt for a burgeoning alternative: the Toronto Dollar, the four-year-old currency system that benefits downtown charities, is in the midst of an expansion campaign.

Launched with fanfare and high hopes in 1998, the substitute cash has achieved limited consumer awareness, due both to its small geographical turf -- the St. Lawrence neighbourhood, in which most participating retailers are located -- as well as restricted distribution. Until early December, the money was only distributed at a booth in the St. Lawrence Market for five hours on Saturdays.

But thanks to a $90,000 Trillium Foundation grant, the currency is expanding, beginning with improved access through a new bank machine recently installed in the lobby of the St. Lawrence Market's south building. In the New Year, Toronto Dollar Community Projects Inc. hopes to expand the scope of the dollar well outside its Front Street retail turf, perhaps encompassing the city of Toronto and Bloor Street heavyweights such as Holt Renfrew. The organization also wants to hire an executive director to oversee the expansion.

"Our objective is to get this currency city-wide," says Susan Bellam, the project's founder and president, and owner of Timbuktu, a shop at 39 Front E. "It's one of these things, like the personal computer, which sounded Looney Tunes 30 years ago and now everybody has one. This sounds on the edge as well, but we're hoping it's going to become pretty mainstream in the future."

The Toronto Dollar is accepted at more than 160 stores inside St. Lawrence Market and along Front Street, but is being expanded to include stores at Gerrard Square and the west-end Cloverdale Mall. It aims to strengthen the local economy, by keeping money circulating nearby, while spinning some funds off into neighbourhood charities.

Bills are approved by Revenue Canada and printed by the Royal Banknote Company in denominations of $1, $5, $10, $20, and can be spent on par with the Canadian dollar at any participating retailer. The retailer can then either choose to keep circulating the money by spending it at another store, or cash it in at a 90 per cent exchange, with the remaining 10 per cent donated to charity.

Additionally, when someone purchases notes from Toronto Dollar Community Projects, 10 per cent of that sum also goes to charity. The organization has contributed at least $35,000 so far to agencies and community groups.

Robert Klein, who works with Bellam at Timbuktu, says that in the past nine months he's spent up to $600 in Toronto Dollars. "It sounds crazy, but I actually find that I get better service when I use it," he says. "People are really thrilled when I give them the money. There's no attitude about it, like 'Oh my God, not more of this.' They're absolutely amazingly psyched about it. It's really been embraced down here."

The currency's effect should be twofold, explains Bellam. "The idea is that it doesn't cost anybody anything; you still do that hundred bucks of shopping the way you would have, but since you've made that little bit of effort we can help fund a local community centre," she says. "At the same time it's a way of giving some independence to a local economy. It's not so much fighting globalization, but dealing with it so that you're not just on the receiving end -- so you have a little more control."

Bellam estimates that about $250,000 Toronto Dollars have been purchased, meaning there's a potential $25,000 waiting to be cashed in for charity.

David Brulé, a homeopathic doctor with the Riverdale Homeopathic Clinic on the Danforth, says that despite participating in the program for two years, he's yet to receive any Toronto Dollars. "I use them when I go down to the market," he says. "I think they're more suitable for small purchases," he says, explaining his treatments generally cost several hundred dollars.

Joe Singh of Optic Zone at 33 Jarvis has been participating in the program since it started. "I like [the program], I appreciate the approach and I appreciate the people involved. It's inspiring when you see these community- minded people doing all of this for nothing [in the way of renumeration]." He says that Toronto Dollar sales don't account for much of his business, perhaps $200 to $300 per month. Singh has never cashed in his Toronto Dollars. "I spend them," he says. "Buy groceries, pay off bills, things like that."

Enzo Guida, manager of Guida Printing Services on Lower Sherbourne, has been participating in the program since it started. "We've had some people come to pay with it," he says. Guida says the Toronto Dollar accounts for a varying amount of his business. "We've had [purchases] as high as $200 for one job. We usually go down to the market and spend them with other merchants," he says, though he's redeemed about $100 worth for cash.

Precursors to Toronto's system, such as Ithaca, New York's "Hour" and France's "Sel," have been widely successful on a business level, but until now none have incorporated the charity aspect. "It's an interesting merging of the right and the left," says Bellam.

"Often you have business people on the right urging cutbacks and the community groups on the left. This is an interesting synergistic project. The businessman will support the social, as long as they get supported as well."

"We're sort of in our evolutionary phase. We're not saying that we've made tremendous changes. The thing is we need people to buy into it."