Sharing is a fundamental concept that most children learn early on, but getting back to this basic concept as an adult can be useful and emotionally rewarding as well. The concept of sharing is a big principle around one of the newest Leadership Chattanooga group projects: The Chattanooga Tool Barn.
The Leadership Chattanooga Team of J.J. Jerman, Meredith Rivers, Ashlee Patten, Stephanie Deimling, Alex Santiago, Matt Hodges and Trey Meyer developed the idea of the Tool Barn after recognizing the need within non-profits for tools to do projects, but the lack of storage space and funds available to these non-profits for these items.
Rivers says that in the beginning, the group sat around and threw around ideas until teammate Jerman suggested the Tool Barn idea from a similar project he had heard of in his hometown of Atlanta. Rivers, who formally worked with the United Way, knew that Gifts in Kind (recently renamed Good360) had a partnership with Ace Hardware and the Salvation Army for a similar idea that was unable to get off the ground. This Leadership Chattanooga group partnered with them and began to get the project going.
Progress was made and, on May 2, the ribbon-cutting event for the Chattanooga Tool Barn was held at the 700 E. 11th Street location where it now resides, inside the old Farmer’s Market.
The Tool Barn lends tools and equipment to local nonprofits and community groups to enable public cleanup or renovation projects. The purpose of the Tool Barn is to eliminate a typical obstacle to collaborative neighborhood maintenance: a lack of proper tools. The Tool Barn and its partners (The United Way, Gifts in Kind and Ace Hardware) hope offering such a resource will encourage a growing number of citizens to volunteer their time to remedy urban blight. From collecting loose trash to repairing damaged infrastructure, tools available in the Tool Barn can equip “grassroots” community revitalization.
Rivers says, “The idea be-hind it is the fact that nonprofits many times do not have places to store tools or have the funds for tools. The idea was to have a resource of tools when a project was needed where they could go and simply borrow without having to pay or having to store these tools.”
She says this service is absolutely free, and non-profits only have to show proof of their 501-(C)3 status.
Leadership Chattanooga is about getting out in the community and seeing what the needs are, what citizens can do, and how they can partner with many agencies and companies that are already out there, Rivers says. This project they developed according to those standards was a natural fit for them, she says.
“We thought this was something, if we could get it off the ground, it had sustainability because it already had the partners behind it. Part of it was just using the partnership in general, and then being involved in the community,” Rivers says.
The Chattanooga Tool Barn’s expansion efforts will continue by gathering more tools over time. They have stationed a full-time employee and worker of Salvation Army supply at the Tool Barn location who will run the location. The next step in the project is mainly marketing in making sure non-profits know of this as an available resource for their needs.
Good360 (Gifts in Kind) accepts new corporate product donations that can be used by their network of nonprofits. They also accept monetary donations from individuals to help cover the cost of shipping and distribution of product donations to the nonprofits that need them most.
They have been a nonprofit leader in product philanthropy since 1983 and are ranked as one of the top 10 best-managed charities by Forbes Magazine. Good360 operates at less than 1.8 percent of the value of products donated and has distributed more than $7 billion in product donations since inception.
There are three ways Good-360 can get donated products to a nonprofit: clients browse their catalog and place an order, clients pickup donations from a local retail store, or clients receive one-time local donations. Good 360 handles product distribution globally, including logistics and warehousing, for hundreds of Fortune 500 corporations, and they are EPA SmartWay certified for environmental efficiency.
The Chattanooga Tool Barn is off on the right foot in showing that sharing with others and with the community is a concept that adults can certainly put to good use.
Those interested in donating new or gently used tools should contact Lee Barton at Gifts in Kind Warehouse at 423-757-9527 or lee-bartonsa@yahoo.com. To donate to the United Way or the Salvation Army, visit their Web pages. For more information on the Chattanooga Tool Barn, email chattanoogatoolbarn@gmail.com.