Like many creative people, Emily Fritz comes from a crafty family. Her grandfather was a woodworker, but he died before she could learn from him. Eager to explore the craft, she wasn't sure where to begin, and that experience inspired her to help others find their starting point. She is the founder and executive director of Lancaster Workshop + Tool Library, opening later this year.

"Finding mentorship, tools, space, etc., was a serious lifelong limitation until I shared this story with my friend, mentor and now co-founder, Gene Shaw, a retired cabinetmaker and artist in the city of Lancaster who invited me to learn with him," she recalled. "By lesson three, I told Gene we must start a community workshop to give our community an opportunity to learn skilled trades in a mentorship, cohort environment, from seasoned experts."

She connected with SCORE, wrote a business plan, created a budget and pitched her idea to the Historic Preservation Trust of Lancaster County. The Trust agreed to serve as fiscal sponsor, supporting the workshop and tool library under the Trust's 501(c)(3) status.

"It's really thanks to them and their belief in our mission along with the Steinman STEM Alliance for giving us the gift of startup funding to get off the ground," Fritz said.

In August 2025, Shaw began setting up space in a warehouse located at 433 Ice Ave., Lancaster.

The organizers' vision is to provide a place that's half workshop space for hands-on learning, half lending library for tools.

They also want to bring DIY projects and skilled trades to women and other underrepresented groups and hope the Lancaster Workshop + Tool Library will create an intergenerational, intersectional space that reflects and uplifts the diversity of Lancaster.

Fritz noted that the organization owes everything to Shaw's support. Well known in the woodworking, art, historic preservation and architecture industries, he has been instrumental in finding materials and tool donations, as well as recruiting instructors.

"I did the behind-the-scenes business stuff, but none of this would be possible without him, his expertise, his connections, his time and willingness to take me on as a mentor and go on this wild ride," Fritz explained.

The organization is in the process of promoting and recruiting Founding Members for a soft opening in March, and a grand opening is scheduled for the workshop and library at 4 p.m. on Thursday, May 14. The space will initially be open on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 3 to 7 p.m. and on Saturdays and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Community hours will also be available in the future.

During a recent tour of the space, tool library coordinator Aidan Fife explained how the site will operate.

"On one side, we'll have a workshop space, where we will offer classes and open workshop hours, so if people have a project they'd like to work on, they can do that here," he said. "They can use our bigger tools, like our table saw, miter saw and band saw."

The organization will require safety classes to prepare people to use the bigger tools.

The library side of the building houses a wide variety of tools that members can check out, much like they'd do with books in a traditional library. Shelves are packed with hundreds of items, including circular saws, screwdrivers, drills, sanders, air compressors and more. People can borrow gardening tools, such as rakes, shovels or a wheelbarrow.

"The general premise of the tool library is we want it to be accessible to people who want to fix something at home, but maybe they don't have the money or want to buy a tool they'll use once," Fife said. "Or they don't have the space to store the tool if they did buy it."

To prepare for opening the tool library, Shaw, Fritz, Fife and their team visited similar sites in the region, including the West Philly Tool Library and the Station North Tool Library in Baltimore.

They were inspired by the size and scope of both places, and they envision Lancaster's library-of-things expanding over time.

They hope to continue to build the inventory through donations of items, and they plan to offer classes for people to learn new skills. Current classes include programs on stained glass, a seed exchange and a masonry class.

"The sky's the limit on what we could offer here," Fife said. "It's really just finding the teachers who are skilled in the subject and interested in teaching."

Like Shaw and Fritz, Fife hopes the space will welcome anyone who is interested in learning more about skilled trades or borrowing a piece of equipment they need for a project.

"I see this as a community space," he said. "People will be able to learn to do things they didn't know how to do before. Sure, you can watch YouTube, but being in front of someone who has done this for 50 years, there's no substitute for that."

The Lancaster Workshop + Tool Library has a sliding scale membership. To learn more about the organization, visit http://www.lancasterworkshop.com. To become a member, visit https://lancworkshop.lend-engine-app.com.