Small Town Makes Own Money to Overcome the Crisis – Out of Wood

A small town in Washington, USA is printing its own currency in response to the recession caused by the coronavirus outbreak – using the same old printing press that helped boost the town’s economy during the Great Depression in 1931!

The town, Tenino, is home to less than 2,000 people, and businesses in its Main Street area accept the wooden bills for anything other than alcohol, tobacco, cannabis and lottery tickets.

“It was kind of an epiphany: Why don’t we do that again?” says Mayor Wayne Fournier to the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “It only made sense.”

The $25 wooden bills being printed include the town’s name, the words “COVID Relief” superimposed on an image of a bat, and a Latin phrase that translates to “We have it under control”. The city government supports the local currency: residents are eligible for up to 300 dollars’ worth a month, which local businesses can later exchange for U.S. dollars at a 1:1 rate.