Sanders, sewing machines, hammers, hedge trimmers, rakes and e-bikes are among the gadgets and gizmos San Mateo County residents can rent for free through a new neighborhood nonprofit, Essential Tools.
Manzanita Works — an umbrella organization that collaborates with local faith and labor leaders to “help working families with their daily lives” —soft-launched Manzanita Tool Share 18 months ago, and renamed it Essential Tools earlier this month.
The gas-free tool share program is built to equip residents, essential workers and community groups with free apparatuses for home repairs, arts and crafts, landscaping, bike fixes, culinary arts and woodworking. The products are listed in an online inventory like a virtual store, running the gamut from drop cloths for painting to crowbars for carpentry to pole saws for gardening, and more.
In the Bay Area, the CEO of Essential Tools, Mila Zelkha, said that “AI, robotics and automation” dominate the conversation about the future of work. Essential Tools is a “wonderful venture that is analog and human centric,” she believes.
The seed of the operation germinated in 2020, when a coalition of Manzanita Works stakeholders met weekly to brainstorm ways to address the nonprofit’s core topics: health, housing, transit, food, family and future. In relation to the last category, restaurant workers expressed excitement about the dawn of pandemic-era parklets but lamented the lack of pressure washers to keep the streets clean, Zelkha said.
Because she believes that “unless you’re truly independently wealthy, everyone is one life event or situation from instability and living paycheck to paycheck,” Zelkha acknowledges that, for many, the cost of acquiring tools like pressure washers can be steep and prohibitive.
Moreover, these tools may be needed only occasionally and can be a pain to store and maintain. Zelkha hopes her organization can streamline the tool acquisition and use process, to lower the barrier to entry for new hobbies, technical jobs and critical maintenance.
The CEO has looked at Berkeley Public Library’s decades-old Lending Library, which started in 1979 and offers members thousands of tools for free, as a model for her operation.
Some Manzanita Works members applied in 2021 for a grant from the San Mateo County Sustainability Department to launch Essential Tools, which would reduce community consumption by promoting tool sharing. The organization ultimately accepted $50,000 from the county to kick the wheels of Essential Tools into motion.
The organization’s first organic lending took place on April 5, when a San Mateo County resident borrowed a palm sander. As a mobile service, Essential Tools can meet lenders at the corner of Bay Road and 10th Avenue in Redwood City or at 26870 Moody Rd. in Los Altos and does not demonstrate how to use the tools, but does ensure the upkeep and condition of the equipment it rents.
Currently, the organization has 42 members, hailing from 11 different cities in San Mateo County, with Redwood City being the largest. Essential Tools looks forward to continuing to grow its membership.
The tool lending organization has also supported local groups in “hardening,” or wildfire mitigation, by donating landscaping items to both the county’s Disaster Preparedness Day and the Be Wildfire Safe & Ready events. It’s provided coastal clean-up groups with litter pickers and tarps for cuttings, too.
All Essential Tools purchases are local from Redwood City businesses, namely Hayward Lumber, Outdoor Supply Hardware and Hassett Hardware, which offer discounts to Essential Tools members.
One renter from San Carlos, Lori Mills, said that as a single parent, she doesn’t have much room at the place she’s renting to store items.
“If I buy something, then I immediately use it and give it away because I don’t have space,” she said. “This was exciting for me because I thought ‘Oh! I can get jobs done that I want.’”
She’s used all sorts of Essential Tools products for all kinds of one-time odd jobs, like removing a sticker from her vehicle with a heating gun. In mid-October, she borrowed a sander to smooth out a wine box she found, planning to add little legs and use it as a “catch-all when I come through the door.”
Mills is among the dozens exploring the opportunities for projects that Essential Tools has to offer.
As a nascent organization, Essential Tools is still very much “open to suggestions” for improvement and expansion, Zelkha said, appreciating how it’s already helped foster a “sense of belonging” in the community.
Residents are invited to scope Essential Tools’ inventory for items to rent or get involved by visiting the program’s webpage.
Editor’s Note: This article was updated to include the correct number of Essential Tools members and the spelling of Mila Zelkha’s name.
