About the Asheville Tool Library
Our mission is to provide low-cost access to a wide range of tools, literature, and knowledge to the citizens of Western North Carolina.
Our Vision at The Asheville Tool Library is to empower individuals and the community at large through resources that encourage sustainability, rehabilitation, creativity, entrepreneurship, livability, and community development throughout Western NC. The Asheville Tool Library will directly address the issue of socio-economic inequality that exists in Western NC by providing low/no-cost access to tools, education, and other resources to all members of our community.
Our History
We continue to work hard to serve our community and create a thriving example of the sharing economy that we hope will outlive us all. Through the diligent work of our current Board and volunteers, the Asheville Tool Library has become a huge part of making our city more sustainable and resourceful.
2013 - Conceptualization
The Asheville Tool Library was conceptualized by Nick Letts, Julian Dominic, and Tom Llewellyn. They spent the next two and a half years building community support and financial backing to start moving from concept to a real-life tool library.
2016 - Grand Opening
After all three of the original founders moved away from Asheville, Ben Harper and Kara Sweeney managed the opening of our first location at 133 Church St.
2018 - Putting Down Roots
We established our own non-profit and expanded to a 1100 sq. ft. space. The next several years were spent building up our inventory of over 2000 tools which are available to hundreds of members.
2022 - Growth!
We hired our Library Manager - our first employee - in 2021. After we found out our building was being redeveloped, we found a 2000 sq. ft. space, doubling our footprint and providing room for the maintenance team to grow. We initiated our first major collaboration with the Repair Cafe and will now be hosting their regular tool repair workshops.
Our Staff
The Tool Library has a passionate Library Manager to coordinate the day-to-day operations. They are enthusiastic about building & being a part of nutritive mutual aid networks and anything that puts the power into the peoples hands (or paws, fins, hooves, claws or root tendrils).
Keenan Phillips, our Board Chair, is an experienced tinkerer, mechanic, and builder, pictured in front of the 5th small home he’s built in the Burnsville, NC area. He is most excited about bringing more education and learning opportunities around building to the amazing community resource that is the Asheville Tool Library.
Stephanie Kane, our Board Secrerary, moved to Asheville from Philadelphia, where she worked with local farmers in addition to studying and working with herb farms and small-scale medicine makers. She now works in Sourcing for Gaia Herbs. A fiber artist, herbalist, medicine maker, and DIY-er at heart, she enjoys expanding her knowledge of tools at the Tool Library and is encouraged by its capacity to expand people’s resourcefulness and skills.
Bridget Nelson, our Board Treasurer, has been involved in non-profit management for the past 20 years, as a volunteer, board member, staff, and contract administrator.
Trained in molecular ecology (MS Biology, WCU), she is owner-operator of Liminal Painting Company and City View Farm.
When not at the tool library you can probably find her in the garden or hiking a wilderness trail.
Though an Ashevillan at heart, Witek (“veetek”) was born overseas and raised in the big city. While growing up, he spent summers on a family farm in the mountains of Poland. It’s where he learned that contributing to the community should be neither an obligation nor expectation but simply a way of life. His work mind is usually spread across multiple time zones as a tech team lead in a company practicing creative and disruptive arts. He admires what the Tool Library stands for and its unique community of members, volunteers, and staff. He looks forward to helping expand the Library’s reach and impact.
Ken Kelley was born “Down East” in Washington NC, in a house that he and his father built (His dad first built it in 1948 and then he and Ken renovated it together in 1968). He was raised in Virginia, Puerto Rico and California. During his 20+ years in the US Navy he was stationed in Florida, California, Oregon, Guam, Puerto Rico, and Virginia. He was introduced to tools and DIY at an early age. He is now an ambassador for fixing things, maintaining things, and building things. He is all in for tools.
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