Tool Library and Sustainability Campus Opens in Camden County

The Camden County Freeholder Board has renovated and revitalized a shuttered building to use as the centerpiece to a new sustainability campus, officials said on Monday.

Monday marked the first day it was open.

The goal is to make it easier for Camden County residents to complete their Do It Yourself projects by establishing a tool library at the Office of Sustainability and Shared Services in the Reagan Building, located at 512 Lakeland Road in the Blackwood section of Gloucester Township.

“Many times you need a specific tool to do a particular job, but will never need it again. Instead of buying that tool, you can borrow it from the Camden County tool library,” Camden County Freeholder Michelle Gentek-Mayer, liaison to the Office of Sustainability and Shared Services, said. “Now there is no reason for you not to finish that project.”

Beginning on Nov. 5, the tool library will be open to the public on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons and Sunday mornings. Membership is free for Camden County residents.

“We have collected numerous donations of tools and have catalogued all of the equipment,” Gentek-Mayer said. “We have also established a membership application and tracking system, just like a regular library.”

The tool library is located at the Camden County Environmental Park, a 8-acre site that serves as a hub for community gardening and environmental education.

“We have reinvigorated a greenhouse that had sat vacant for several years,” Gentek-Mayer said. “It now hosts classes in collaboration with the Rutgers Master Gardeners program on topics such as what ornamental plants are best to grow in this region, how to grow and maintain a vegetable garden and how to integrate pest management (IPM) techniques into your garden.”

The Environmental Park also includes the first certified outdoor classroom in South Jersey through the Explore Nature Program. The classroom accommodates Camden County schools looking for an outdoor experience without having to travel long distances. The classroom’s focus is on environmental initiatives such as composting, organic growing techniques, native plants, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), rain water harvesting, renewable energy, along with rain and vegetable gardens.

“At the Environmental Park, we have grown tens of thousands of plants, both annuals and perennials, which have been used throughout the Camden County Park System,” Gentek-Mayer said. “This has created a substantial savings since we were able to buy much smaller plants and grow them with the help of our Rutgers Master Gardeners and volunteers from local municipal green teams.”