February 11th/100 B$= $95

February 7, 2009

Dear BerkShares Businesses,

We are pleased to announce a change to the exchange rate between federal
dollars and BerkShares. Beginning Wednesday, February 11, 2009, 100
BerkShares can be redeemed for 95 federal dollars and vice-versa. This means
that if you are in the position of needing to trade your BerkShares in for
federal dollars, you will receive 5 cents more per BerkShare than under the
previous exchange rate.

Beginning Monday, February 9, 2009, there will be a freeze on trading
federal dollars for BerkShares while the participating banks prepare for the
change. (Customers will still be able to trade BerkShares for federal
dollars during this time.) On Wednesday, February 11, participating banks
will resume two-way exchange at the new rate.

This strategic change will enable the participation of a wider range of
business in the BerkShares local economy, which means businesses like yours
will have more places to spend them. And the more businesses that take
BerkShares, the more people will use them, making our historic local
currency project even bigger and more robust.

BerkShares have recently been featured in Time, Newsweek, and in over 100
regional newspapers through an Associated Press newswire story. The AP story
generated 56,000 hits to the BerkShares website in one day.

Increasingly, people are looking to BerkShares as a model of a stable,
localized, value-added economy and as an alternative to a slumping national
economy. The BerkShares board and staff are committed to growing the project
at a sensible rate and to giving the onlookers even more to talk about.

We greatly appreciate your loyalty, creativity, and your commitment to
making the BerkShares program work as well as it can for our community.

If you have any questions about the new exchange rate and how it affects
your business, please call Sharon Palma, Executive Director, at 413/358-2692
or Sarah Hearn at the BerkShares office at 413/528-1737 during business
hours.

You will find more details about the conversion at the “Frequently Asked
Questions” link on the home page of the BerkShares website
(www.berkshares.org), including a new conversion chart to easily calculate
exchange between BerkShares and federal dollars.

Sincerely,

BerkShares Team
BerkShares, Inc.
PO Box 125
Great Barrington, MA 01230
413 528-1737
www.berkshares.org