CHRISTIANSBURG — John Ruggles may have left a few DIY projects unfinished when he died a year ago at 71, but his legacy of neighbor helping neighbor will go on.
The many tools that Ruggles, a consummate do-it-yourselfer, collected over his lifetime will become the foundation of the area’s first Tool Lending Library.
This, his widow said, is just what he would want to see happen with the equipment he amassed.
“That’s how he met people,” Judy Ruggles said of her late husband, “by helping them to fix something. That was what he was good at.”
Organizers from Habitat for Humanity and the New River Valley Timebank will introduce the project at the Repair Café event set for 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Oct. 13 at the Habitat ReStore in Christiansburg.
Like Repair Cafes and Timebank skills-sharing networks, community tool lending libraries have been growing across the U.S. over the past decade. The NRV tool library will be the first in Virginia, according to localtools.org, a national directory.
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Kim Snider, Habitat’s outreach and development manager, said the tool library is part of making a “community space where people can come to work on projects and do repairs in order reuse, reduce, recycle, reclaim materials and repurpose them to keep things out of the landfill.”
It began in earnest in March, when Judy Ruggles brought a broken toaster to the spring Repair Café.
Another joint project of the ReStore and Timebank, the Repair Café uses volunteer labor to keep broken appliances and furniture, damaged clothing and other items out of landfills.
While waiting for her toaster to be assessed, Ruggles overheard Timebank coordinators Dan Crowder and Ellen Stewart talking about an idea for a “library” that would offer a “checkout” service for people who need access to tools, but either can’t or don’t want to buy them.
This, Ruggles told Crowder and Stewart, would be a perfect place to donate her late husband’s extensive collection of hand and power tools.
His profession was manufacturing logistics, but John Ruggles’ calling was improving life for his family, friends and acquaintances with the DIY skills he had fostered since childhood. From diesel engine repair for somebody he just met to making a custom paint sprayer to change the color of the family home, Judy said “that was how he expressed love, teaching you how to fix something.”
It was a philosophy that permeated his life and flowed from his family history of farming in Kansas, where self-reliance was a necessity, not a hobby. But it was also about sharing your skills and resources with the community.
When the Ruggles’ sons were children, Judy said she and John took them to Habitat build sites. Having helped her family build on their Maryland property, Judy said she knows her way around construction, too. And, from a young age, she learned to alter hand-me-down clothes from her older siblings.
Despite living away from home for much of the last 15 years of his career, John looked forward to spending weekends at their Montgomery County property, his wife said. Quarrying stone to build walkways may not sound fun to everyone, but for John, it was relaxation and refuge, Judy said.
Before he died, John, a Vietnam veteran, had started visiting the Veterans Administration in Salem, where he met a lot of men who, because of disability, could no longer fix things themselves.
Ever the logistics man, John was developing an idea to recruit them as advisors for people who had the physical ability to do their own projects, but needed the know-how.
Unfortunately, he died before he could get it underway, Judy said.
“So I know this is why he wants this,” she said of the tool library project. “This was something he talked about.”
The tool library is a “natural extension of the sharing economy that Timebank is a part of,” Stewart said.
It also dovetails with Habitat’s goal of helping people in the community address critical home repair needs.
“So many people have deferred maintenance,” Fortier said. “Often it’s because they don’t have the tool and may not be able to afford it.”
So the maintenance goes undone, and over time homes begin to deteriorate, she added. Providing access to tools will go a long way to helping people address those repair needs to keep their homes safe, warm and dry.
Timebank volunteers will staff the lending operation and keep the tools themselves in good repair. The group is also applying for grants to buy new tools and will take donations.
“We’re looking forward to hearing from the community about what tools they would most like to see,” Stewart said. “We would like for them to help compile a wish list.”
“This is the foundation, and we expect to expand it,” Crowder said. “There’s so many possibilities that come with this idea. We’re open to all those.”
