Since returning to Lewiston a few years ago, Melanie Swift has wondered how she can help build and strengthen the community she grew up in. “How do you create community?” she asked. It’s a simple-sounding question, but its answers are less clear-cut.

“We all live in the same community. We all have the same values in the community. We all want to see the same things happen in the community,” she said. But how do you get people to work together, to share skills and resources, especially in a fast-paced world most recently defined by online “social” media and shrinking budgets?

One of the answers Swift has found is the Lewiston-Auburn Time Bank, a branch of a national organization that encourages people to trade their time and talents, rather than currency. The Lewiston branch is housed at the 124 Canal St. office of the community health organization Thrive, for which Swift also works.

Members of the Time Bank earn “time dollars” by volunteering to complete specific tasks requested by other members — one time dollar for every hour worked. They can then cash in the time credits they’ve earned by asking others to help them complete tasks of their own. Swift has helped out fellow Time Bank members by cat-sitting, doing sewing and mending, and working with community organizations to develop their strategic planning.

Other common requests are for lawn care, cooking, basic car repairs and tutoring, Sharon Carter, the L-A Time Bank coordinator, said. The bank allows people to share whatever skills they have with others, and to take advantage of other folks with skills they lack — or just to get more helping hands for projects that are too big to do alone.

Most members volunteer more often than they cash in their time dollars, Swift said.

“It’s easier to give than to take,” Carter said. But once members are used to the Time Bank’s model and asking for help from time to time, it becomes a “great way of saving money and doing something good for the community,” Swift said. “Once you start doing it, you’ll do it more often.”

Since every hour volunteered can be exchanged for someone else’s help for an hour, “What you put into it is what you’re going to get out of it,” Swift said.