10 Years & Going Strong

When Thomas and Zach met at a neighborhood meeting and envisioned a local resource that could provide Access over Ownership, they knew it could be something special.  They never expected it would become one of the largest tool lending libraries in the country. Thanks to our amazing volunteers over the past decade MTL has shared tools over 229,000 times, with 9000+ households!

Celebrate our past and help build our future with a gift in honor of our 10 year Anniversary!

From the initial community meetings where we floated the concept of sharing to an enthusiastic yet somewhat dubious audience, the donation drives which built our initial ~200 tool inventory, the 21 early adopters who put their faith in us before we even opened our doors, the first grant from our Windom Park neighbors who helped get our vision off the board and us into our first very cozy hole-in-the-wall, and the 241 founding members who joined our cooperative within the first year... we've grown.

• We expanded our libraries 5x - moving into our current suite in the Thorp building, adding a second branch in St Paul, opening up the wall and annexing the adjoining oil room at Northeast, moving from the basement of Priorworks to Dale, and adding the clean room and south garage storage spaces to SPTL.
• We increased our open hours - 38 hours a week between the branches, and added crucial part-time staffing.
• We grew our community to over 1900 active member households, and countless neighbors and guests who engage in our public programming.
• We built up our inventory - 10,000 tools for use at home and in the shop.
• We expanded programming to include public classes, repair labs, and community service builds.
• We partnered to provide private workshops and trades education for youth in our community.
• We developed our Artist in Residence Program and Tools for Life.

As any DIYer knows, there's always more on the ToDo List. Help us tackle the next project on our list and make our next decade as successful as our last.

Will you GIVE TODAY for MTL's Future?