Habitat Choptank Volunteers bring their extensive building experience to Tool Library DIY projects: from left: Pam Martinsen, Sandy Holicky, Terri Spence, along with Rhodana Fields, Habitat Neighborhood Revitalization Manager. The women have previously participated in Habitat Choptank’s Women Build ventures, citing Cambridge as one of the most progressive areas encouraging female building experience. (Photos by Mike Driscoll)

Habitat for Humanity Choptank’s mission to help Mid-Shore residents realize the dream of home ownership has become widely known and well respected.
Now the organization can add on to that valuable role by bringing home repair and neighborhood revitalization capabilities to qualifying individuals, families, and groups.
The Habitat Tool Library hit the ground running late last year with a grant from the Nathan Foundation. While bringing tools, expertise, and volunteer man (and woman) power to communities Habitat serves, homeowners themselves supply materials and additional helping hands from family and friends.
On a recent January day, successfully navigating wintry weather and ongoing COVID concerns, the traveling Tool Library and Habitat team were welcomed by a group of five Cambridge neighbors. Several volunteers supplied experience, expertise, and enthusiasm to tackle a variety of repair and improvement tasks at each home, led by Habitat Choptank’s Neighborhood Revitalization Manager Rhodana Fields and dedicated AmeriCorps intern Mimi Sanford, who graduated last May with a degree in Architecture and Urban Planning from Brown University.
Among the grateful residents was Teresa McNair, who had been able to purchase her home 25 years ago.
Originally built by the City of Cambridge, it is located on a quiet cul de sac in Cambridge.
According to Habitat Choptank Director JoAnn Hansen, a recent Cambridge survey found 76 percent of homes in the city are over 88 years old, and an aging housing stock means homeowners are challenged by a wide range of repair and maintenance tasks.
Fields further explained, “With the right tools, there are many maintenance tasks that homeowners can perform themselves. Taking care of an issue now can save money in the short term and even more money in the long run, preventing a small issue from turning into a larger problem.”
McNair’s designated DIY project involved replacing her kitchen flooring. Twenty-four-year-old grandson Sajheed McNair, a Towson University accounting major on winter break before his final semester prior to graduation, was hard at work carefully measuring, cutting, and fitting with precision strips of new flooring material.
Along with the good feeling of helping his grandmother, Sajheed, under the supervision of skilled and watchful Habitat staff and volunteers, was enhancing his future skill set by acquiring hands on experience using circular, oscillating, and jigsaws.
This type of learning exemplifies one of Habitat’s Tool Library’s goals of helping people help themselves going forward.
“The idea behind the Tool Library is to empower community members to tackle simple home improvement and maintenance tasks or community projects.
Neighbors or organizations can join to propose a project and Habitat Choptank will work with them to refine its scope and create a plan for successful outcome,” Fields noted. (Building raised garden beds to facilitate economic and health sustaining home growing of food is one such “wish list” suggestion.)
In December 2021 Habitat Choptank partnered with the Talbot County Free Library to offer a tool lending library workshop there. Additional community outreach workshops to be held outdoors are in the works as the weather warms up.
“We will be continuing to provide access to the Tool Library in the neighborhoods where we build and offer repair services, with a particular focus in The Hill District in Easton and the Pine Street Historic Neighborhood in Cambridge,” Fields added.
For more information on Habitat’s Tool Library or volunteering, call 410-476-3204 or e-mail rfields@habitatchoptank.org.