It's Official!

Woven City Restoration has been approved by the city for a Home Occupation in the barn. We can now invite mentors and coaches to come in and work side by side with the people they are coaching. We also have skilled volunteers ready to mentor those interested in learning wood working skills. Our first project is rebuilding picnic tables for the Rochester Youth Soccer Association!

Tool Donation Drive Week Two

Woven is accepting donations of gently used hand tools to be used for our community workshops.

Tool Donation Drive

Woven City Restoration is hosting a tool drive for the month of October to build up our tool collection for community workshops. Can you help? Here is a partial list of tools we need. The list will be updated regularly as tools come in. To make a tax deductible financial donation click here. We are happy to provide a tax receipt for the fair market value of donated tools. Any questions or to make a tool donation contact leah@wovencity.org.

Carpenter’s Squares

Speed Squares

Tape Measures

Utility Knives

hammers

nail pullers

screwdriver sets

chisel sets

hand planers

levels - short and long

crow bars

2 pound sledge hammers

Where Have We Been And Where Are We Going?

It’s been a couple of months. No pictures. No social media posts. No new heart-wrenching stories. Actually, there never were any heart-wrenching stories. No news. No updates. So, where have we been and what have we been doing?

After our initial start-up late last spring, with your help in making our two kick-off fundraisers amazing, we went right to work. We dove into the behind the scenes, write grants, talk to people, make connections kind of stuff. All necessary but not a social media, website kind of info. We did a couple of workshops in the community. First making scrap wood and metal signs with a student group. Then we partnered with Bridging the Gaps in Rochester to provide a birdhouse workshop for their summer programming. We also worked with a group from The Commons Church who showed up on a Sunday afternoon to take apart a trailer full of pallets for us. Click on the links to see pictures.

We also received our first grant from the East Coast Conference of the Evangelical Covenant Church!!! This grant provided funding to purchase equipment and office supplies and gave us the much-needed capital to start having workshops. There are consumable costs even when you are working with reclaimed lumber.

Then the backbreaking, sore muscle kind of stuff began to happen. More wood was donated and needed to be moved and stacked. Some outside, some inside. We received some donations of larger wood shop tools, like a drill press and a table router. All these items needed a home. We put a claim on a barn owned by our board president (with his permission), and we began the task of outfitting the space for workshop use. We are still in the midst of setting up that space.

Last but not least we went to the city of Rochester to ask for a permit to operate the space as a mentoring workshop. This space can be used by individuals who are coaching or mentoring someone. It provides a space to work side by side, to create something together and to build a bond. The permitting process is almost complete. When we are fully permitted, we will be posting it ALL OVER social media!

Where are we going?

All this preparation means that we will have a functioning workshop to work alongside folks in the community who need life skill coaching, job skills training, and mentoring. Connections are already being made, workshop dates are being finalized, and wood projects are being created as I write this post. Please keep your eyes open for our tool drive starting next week, for opportunities to use the workshop with the person you are coaching or mentoring, and for time to build something in the studio. Community workshops will also be shared. As always you can find us at wovencity.org, WovenCDA, and Woven City Restoration. “Life is a journey, not a destination.” Emerson