Ten “pollinators” are on a mission to spread the word and the wealth behind a local currency. The goal, says Hudson Valley Current Executive Director and Ulster County Legislator Chris Hewitt, is to get dozens of businesses along the Broadway Corridor to begin accepting the alternative currency for goods and services.

“Currents” are brightly colored bills featuring images of local flora and fauna. Available in denominations of one, five, 10 and 20, one Current is valued at $1. Since launching as a nonprofit in 2017, the Current has built up a network of 400 businesses in Ulster, Dutchess and Columbia counties that accept the currency, and put $2 million in Currents into circulation.

The Current’s objective is to keep money circulating in the local economy while supporting small businesses. The nonprofit gets about half its funding through the NoVo Foundation which has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in Kingston and the surrounding area over the past decade with an emphasis on building or supporting community organizations in Midtown.

In 2020, the Current opened Tilda’s Kitchen at 630 Broadway. The restaurant serves as the Current’s headquarters as well as a community space and clearinghouse for Current-friendly goods and services. Along with breakfast, lunch and dinner menus, Tilda’s offers 200 grocery items that can be purchased with the alternative currency.

The year 2020, Hewitt said, also demonstrated the local currency’s potential. The Current Resilience Program offered 10 local nonprofits $5,000 lines of credit — “lines of trust” — to facilitate large scale bartering between them. The program tripled the use of Currents while providing a pandemic-era lifeline to community groups working to address food insecurity and other issues.

“It showed that even a local currency can have an injection of money that stabilizes an economy,” said Hewitt.

The latest effort by the Current seeks to build on that momentum by getting the currency into wider circulation in Kingston, specifically along the Broadway Corridor where the group wants to recruit 25 businesses. Hewitt said he hopes focusing the effort on the blocks around Tilda’s will encourage businesses to sign up. Hewitt used the example of a Tilda’s employee who was able to use Currents to get a haircut at a business next door because the barber ate lunch at the restaurant.

“The goal is to have one street that really works well for the Current so we can replicate it elsewhere,” said Hewitt.

To accomplish that, the nonprofit has recruited 10 “Pollinators” who will receive 250 Currents a month over the next six months. The pollinators were chosen for their connection to various subgroups in Kingston like music, finance and the creative sector. Each pollinator’s goal is to spend their allotment each month while recruiting Broadway businesses and serving as ambassadors for currency.

The group will meet for monthly lunches to strategize and discuss the effort’s progress. There will also be regular workshops drawing on each pollinator’s area of expertise, including financial literacy and entrepreneurship. After six months, HVC hopes $15,000 in Currents will be circulating among a few dozen local businesses. At that point the program will take a break to assess what did and did not work before starting up again in October 2024 with a new group of pollinators.

“We are thrilled to introduce the pollinator stipend as a means of strengthening our local economy, and supporting members of our community, both individuals and our local small business owners," said Emily Sause, director of membership at the Hudson Valley Current. "By providing a guaranteed income through the Current, we aim to strengthen local supply chains in order to amplify economic resilience.”