Saint John Tool Library and DIY Centre Will Empower People to Improve Neighbourhoods
SAINT JOHN– The Port City is getting a new library this spring, but instead of loaning books, people will be able to take out hammers, drills, and other tools for home projects in city neighbourhoods with buildings in need of repair.
The Saint John Tool Library and DIY Centre, which will be located at 160 Union Street in uptown Saint John, will be a tool library and cooperative shop in uptown Saint John where people will be able to access tools for various projects. It will also be a workspace where field experts will host workshops and members can come and work on projects.
The idea for the library came from Brent Harris, a local contractor and resident of the south end of Saint John, an area of the city that has a lot of social and economic issues, one of them being uncared for buildings.
“When I look outside my door on Mecklenburg Street, there’s one apartment right across [the street]. It’s just beaten up, the door is half-beat in,” said Harris. “It looks rough and it’s really hard to imagine anything good about that place and I can imagine having to live it in. You have a hard time getting to a place where you’re saying, ‘I live in a healthy community around people who are trustworthy.’ It’s really difficult to form any sort of good imagination.”
After brainstorming and researching with friends, Harris said they landed on the tool library concept because it would give people access to the tools and information they need to solve these issues in their own communities.
“What we found was [tool libraries have] actually gone from the 1970s where they started, into the whole world. They’ve gone to rural areas, urban areas, western countries, Belgium, United States, Canada,” says Harris.
“They take different forms and have done some really great things. Lots of people who wouldn’t normally be able to afford the tools to do a job in their home or in their community get access to it. It promotes a whole culture of collaboration and sharing knowledge.”
The Saint John Tool Library and DIY Centre will be a social enterprise, meaning it’s an organization that applies commercial strategies to maximize improvements in financial, social and environmental well-being in a community. People will be able to pay for different levels of membership that will allow them different levels of access, with the cheapest plan costing $25 and the most expensive being $350.
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Harris says there have been a lot of people volunteering to teach workshops in fields like woodworking, knitting, crochet, finger jointing, crown moulding, and how to do backsplash.
He says the amount of community support was something they didn’t expect.
“The number of people who have come up to me who are trying to build little furniture projects in their apartment, just in the south end, saying, ‘I can’t wait for you to get this done, what can I do to help?’ We did not see that coming. We thought this was going to be a year … but it really blew up and we’re at the point where we pretty much pre-sold memberships.”
The library and shop will be styled after Elwood’s Wood Lab, a private wood-making shop that’s getting ready to shut its doors in Saint John because its owner, Tim Cressman, is moving away. Harris says they’re trying to embody Elwood’s open concept for their Union Street space.
“We just said, ‘we want it to look like Elwood’s,’ ” said Harris. “Open-concept where people can come in, work away, have a little space for themselves … Then the storefront where you look through the glass, that will be a smaller more condensed library for tools. You can come in, take your tools, put them in the car and off you go.”
The organization won’t just have the look of Elwood’s, but its tools as well. Harris says they recently bought a large number of Cressman’s tools, benches, racks and other odds and ends. This was made possible through seed funding they secured from the Impact Group and Futurepreneur. Harris says they will also be holding a community tool drive at the end of April.
The Saint John Tool Library and DIY Centre is expected to open sometime in May. When it’s up and running, Harries hopes it will help give people in the city the tools and skills they need to take care of their homes and their neighbourhoods.
“If I could sum it up, I really just want everybody to become a DIY hero,” says Harris
“We really just want a culture that can empower people to look after their home, look after their neighbour’s home, and have space where they can get advice and some experience to lead the charge on that.”
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