Tool library hosts one day make-a-thon
By Cat Kelly
The Ottawa Tool Library is all about making people’s trash their treasure once again — by fixing it for them.
A recent one-day event invited anyone who needed a hand (or handyman) to mend their broken things as a way to promote the act of repairing before reusing, reducing and recycling.
Emily Brown, Repair Café’s event co-ordinator, said repairing is the first step to reducing waste.
“Whenever you’ve got something that you know just needs a little bit of tinkering to give it another few years of life, (repairing) it just means that it’s not going into the landfill and another thing replacing it,” she said.
Located in Makerspace North, the tool library provides members with a year-round tool lending service. For $60 a year, members can rent as many tools as they need from the library’s wide range of donated tools.
From mechanical saws, drills and everything else in between, Brown said the tool library has not only provided affordable tools for Ottawa residents, but built a community while doing it.
“We’re completely volunteer run,” said Brown “from our tool ninjas, who give advice to members on what tools they need for their projects, to volunteers that bake biscuits and cookies so that people stay and share what they’re fixing or creating.”
The Repair Café and “Make-a-thon” on April 8 were the first of their kind hosted by the Ottawa Tool Library.
For the “Repair Café” portion, skilled workers like bicycle repairmen, seamstresses, woodworkers, computer technicians and more lent their talents to fix whatever item might be collecting dust in people’s garage.
Meanwhile, members who were looking for space to build had the chance to share working space and use the tools available on-site.
“The Make-a-thon is for members that don’t necessarily have space in their apartment to be dragging a table-saw to do work they want to in their own space,” said Brown, noting that the event allowed them “to rent out a work-bench space and to be here with the tools, like a pop-up workshop for the day.”
Bettina Vollmerhausen, co-founder of the Ottawa Tool Library, said the non-profit hopes to host more community events like the Repair Café and Make-a-thon on a more regular basis.
“These events happen because people care about their community,” said Vollmerhausen. “We’re certainly going to have many more. The turnout was amazing.”