We have an opportunity to BUY our shop!  

It feels pretty ambitious but we know we can do this… with your help.  

We’re raising $120,000 to purchase the three-story building we’re in, and make it the permanent headquarters for RAWtools Philly.

The folks who currently rent us the space – 3212 Kensington Avenue (19134) have offered us a unique opportunity to buy the building, so we’re launching a massive crowdfund campaign to make it happen.

As you may know, RAWtools gets its name from flipping “WAR” around… and that’s what we do.  We turn guns into garden tools, art, and other life-giving things.  And we work hard to change policies, heal hearts, and build a more peaceful world. 

We’ve been chopping up guns for over 10 years, but we just got this dedicated space two years ago.  We can’t think of a better location, in the heart of Kensington, one of the neighborhoods that bears a disproportionate amount of the weight of America’s gun violence crisis.  It is here that we want to fire up the forge and shine light in the darkness.  

Many of you have been to our shop.  It is a powerful multi-purpose space – part artistic studio, part workshop, part memorial space, part organizing hub.  And we’d love to expand what we’re doing into the top two floors (it’s a huge building!).  We can imagine creating a space for kids, a room for counseling, a place where people can buy stuff we make, maybe even a guest room for people passing through!  But first we need to buy it.

When I heard the price — $120,000 – it hit me – 120 – that is the number of lives lost each day to guns in America.  It’s heart-wrenching.  In my lifetime (48 years), we’ve lost more lives to guns domestically than in all the combined deaths in all of America’s wars throughout history.  More than 40,000 lives lost each year.  Guns are now the #1 cause of death of children and youth in America, more than cancer or car accidents.  

 So we’re going for it – 120k.  We’re raising $120,000 to continue to create this space where we are committed to saving lives.  

The work of RAWtools Philly is holy work.  We’re counting on you to make it happen.  Let’s raise $120,000 together.  And next year, we’ll throw a big open shop party so you can come visit and see what you have helped make possible.  Thanks in advance for all the love and support.  –Shane Claiborne