JOSHUA ALLAN
The 1510 West
Gone are the days when needing to borrow a snowblower or an extra pair of hands for a home maintenance project meant knocking on your neighbour’s door. Instead, Beaconsfield residents can now request this and more through a digital city-wide sharing initiative launched earlier this month.
It’s an app, launched in 2023, that was featured on Radio-Canada’s version of the popular English CBC show Dragons’ Den, Dans l’œil du dragon, where aspiring entrepreneurs pitch business ideas and products to a panel of business mogals.
It “facilitates the lending and borrowing of items between neighbours, helping to reduce individual consumption,” city spokesperson Anabel Dumont said.
App creators Fauve Doucet and Anaïs Majidier made an appearance on the show in April 2024 where they successfully pitched the concept as a method to address the “severe underutilisation of our goods.”
The pitch impressed the Dragons, with Quebec entrepreneur Nicolas Duvernois agreeing that it would be ridiculous, for example, “to buy a saw to cut one piece of wood.”
Beaconsfield residents are able to register on the app to easily borrow and lend everything from tools for special projects to everyday household items. There is no charge for borrowing items and the timeframe for borrowing can vary depending on the agreement reached. But app users are required to return the items on time and in the same condition in which they received them.
For the first time on the municipal level, the app is featuring an option for residents to offer and request assistance with small tasks and services, including yard work, knowledge sharing, help outside the home and even companionship.
Dumont added that the initiative would help to “strengthen social ties” and build community resiliency.
The app was created “with the environment at heart,” adding that encouraging neighbourly sharing of items would work to reduce overconsumption of goods and resources.
Apart from Beaconsfield, the fully bilingual application has already been put to use by eight municipalities across Quebec, including the cities of Laval and Beloeil; towns of Prévost and Boisbriand in the Laurentians; the town of Crabtree in Lanaudière; and the Eastern Township’s towns of Coaticook, St. Césaire and St. Georges de Windsor. Beaconsfield is the first of these municipalities to include the services feature.
“It’s a practical way to foster mutual support and strengthen community life,” Dumont added.
The agreement between the town and Partage Club allows for 380 residents to register for free membership on the app. As of Monday, 137 people had signed up. Once the free quota has been met additional registrants will be charged a $60 annual subscription fee.