lot.” She didn’t need convincing to commit to a $100 annual membership. “I’m just really excited to have this in the community and to have a space to go to. I just signed up to volunteer this upcom ing Saturday.” Yoon learned about tool libraries from an article in The New York Times. “I like cutting down on con sumerism and just reusing and sharing as much as possible,” she says. “I don’t know that I would have tackled the projects without borrowing the tools. I would have just started with who do I need to hire to fix what I need to get fixed.” Because SOMA Tool Share is a nonprofit organization and she doesn’t of ten have the need to rent tools, she chose to support their mission with a recurring monthly donation. Helmkamp recalls a recent borrower who need ed the enormous wood clamps he had spotted in their inventory. “The reason he came was that they were top-of-the-line clamps and they were going to cost him nearly 350 bucks.” Of course, it’s great to be able to borrow tools to tackle your home projects but not if you don’t know how to use them. That’s where the group’s learning series comes in. To date, they’ve held A “Homeowning 101” class led by Paul Lewis of 2GFN and pickersnj.com; a “Fix a Flat” bike work shop by SOMA Bike Bus volunteers; a “Plumbing 101” seminar given by Johnny Cataneo of Toro to the Rescue; and a “Yard, Lawn & Garden Basics” workshop led by local expert Neil Chambers of Chambers Design. To see what’s next, follow them on Facebook and Instagram or visit somatoolshare.org. The SOMA Tool Share board is searching for a permanent space to call home to stock the tools, lend them out, hold seminars and host workshops. They also need local experts to lead classes. Their hope is to create a community that encourages DIY confidence while also promoting sustainabil ity and creating opportunities for volunteerism and skill-sharing. “We’re a simple organization,” Grossman says. “It’s a simple idea. But if executed well, I think it’s a benefit to the entire community.” Ellen Donker tries to tackle easy home-improve ment projects but has learned that everything takes longer than YouTube videos lead you to believe. feature story / 27 lano joined a Google group focused on the subject. “There’s an international alliance, and there’s a na tional alliance. It’s a really amazing forum where people who run tool libraries talk about the issues that they have,” she says. “A lot of the issues that came up as concerns for people who are not familiar weren’t actually big issues for the people who run them day to day.” That eased her mind about tool theft and injury and reinforced the notion that a tool library becomes a community for people who simply want to take good care of their homes and property. Villano notes that some tool libraries are part of public libraries, while others are standalone or attached to existing nonprofits such as Habitat for Humanity. As Villano ruminated on her idea, she connect ed with Dave Helmkamp. An engineer who main tains a number of residential properties, he had also been thinking about a tool library. In fact, he had spent the last six months searching for commer cial space to house tools and serve as a co-working space for members to build projects. “When Janet and I met,” Dave says, “she agreed to go down my path until we had assessed all the properties that might be suitable. In exchange, if that didn’t play out, I agreed to help her start just a tool share.” After they exhausted their commercial space options, Villano researched the steps needed to start a tool library. She and Helmkamp also held meetings in Maplewood and South Orange to de termine community interest. “We got about a dozen people in each meeting, which was great,” says Villano, “and that’s how we found our third board member, Kenny [Gross man], who is an architect and lives in South Or ange.” The bonus was that his wife, Cindy Gross man, is an attorney who later helped them form a 501c3 nonprofit. For Kenny Grossman, who has gotten his hands dirty with general contracting and many house maintenance projects, the community aspect of the nonprofit was his primary interest. “Just like everybody else, I have an old house in town and ev erything needs to be fixed all the time. I love doing those things. But it’s a lot and sometimes it needs more than one set of hands. So, something that had been of interest to me was creating some sort of community board, some way for people with similar interests to get in touch.” In 2025, the trio started meeting monthly to talk through their plans and next steps. They also held a very successful tool drive in Maplewood and now have about 1,300 tools in inventory. Villano housed the tools in her basement for nine months until this past January when they moved them to Extra Space Storage, above the Founders Park Com munity Center on Valley Street in South Orange. “We have more screwdrivers than you’ll ever need,” Villano says with a laugh. “No one should ever, ever buy a screwdriver. There’s so many in the world. Hammers also.” For four months, Villano and volunteers orga nized the tools. She says, “Everyone helped, tak ing pictures, writing down the tool, the make, the model, whatever [was] needed to explain the tool and putting it into a software system.” Now residents can sign up to borrow via the website. A one-time payment of $30 gives you a month of borrowing privileges. An annual membership of $100 provides a year of access to tools. SOMA Tool Share also takes donations. The board held fundraisers to cover expenses. The group was also fortunate to be awarded a seed grant of $5,000 this year from the Maplewood Foundation. A l t h o u g h Lewis-Atishev says she first learned about SOMA Tool Share from a Facebook post, she was already familiar with the concept. “We had just moved from Chicago,” she says. “Chicago has a huge tool library that we used a Volunteers helped organize the tools which required taking pictures of each one, recording the tool name, make and model along with a description of the tool in order to put it into the software system. Board members (L to R): Dave Helmkamp, Kenny Gross man and Janet Villano on the first day of operations. Christine Yoon with Janet Villano.Yoon borrowed an oscil lating saw. As part of SOMA Tool Share’s learning series, Paul Lewis led a class on “Homeowning 101."
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