***Check campaign updates

Our Mission:

Our Goals:

To bring our work to you through the PeaceMaker tour (see below). 

A funded campaign will change how we operate.  We will move from 100% volunteer staff to adding a full time position and a half time position, while training and equipping more volunteers.  The focus of the staff will be on the following areas:

Repurposing Weapons-

• Establish a nationwide network where guns can be turned into garden tools (and other objects that are used for creation).  A network of places to legally disable weapons and safely transport them to be made into garden tools.  This has already begun and is ready for the next phase, which requires time and availability.  
• Continuing our blacksmith work and training other blacksmith volunteers.
• Develop pilot programs with police departments that regularly donate confiscated weapons to RAWtools.
  

• An online, interactive database that tracks every tool to the gun it was made from.  Now imagine the ability to create a new narrative with your tool.  Post pictures, video, and stories about your tool.  See them alongside the narrative of the gun it was made from.  Once designed to kill, now commissioned to create...to grow...to nourish.  Cooperative farms where all of their tools are made from guns.  Community Gardens with dedicated plots, tilled by tools from guns, grown for local food banks

What We Need & Where its Going

We need seed money to fund a full time position and a half time position for one year.  The full time position will be filled by our Executive Director, Mike Martin, and will oversee all operations.  The half time position will be filled by one of our founding directors, Mary Sprunger-Froese, and will oversee development of  educational resources for nonviolence and collaboration with already existing resources to use on the PeaceMaker tour and make available on our website.  We've come a long way on a volunteer basis and are ready for the next step! 

About Mike and Mary

• Mike is the founder of RAWtools and a former Youth & Young Adult Pastor licensed in Mountain States Mennonite Conference.  The non-violent Anabaptist witness of the Mennonite church and working around landscaping for 10+ years have helped build a network for RAWtools.  This network spans many ideologies and backgrounds.  Mike has put in over 600 hours of volunteer work in an effort to establish RAWtools.  He will continue to oversee all operations, but with much more time to develop networks and relationships that will allow RAWtools to be self sustaining after one year.  He'll also spend a lot of time at the anvil and forge!

• Since 1979, Mary has been part of an ecumenical intentional community that serves the poor and seeks to practice nonviolence in the city of Colorado Springs. Mary’s work in theater (since 1990) and adult education (since 2002) spark her enthusiasm for growing RAWtools as a resource for personal and social transformation.  A board member since RAWtools began; Mary treasures the Anabaptist witness and the unlimited potential of nonviolence.
  AUDIO FROM MARY- http://thirtysecondsorless.net/new-way/

• Your contribution will help expand on a multitude of artistic expressions of peace we have seen across the country, from jewelry to giant plowshares.  Now there can be a national network for anyone to turn in their gun for a new purpose.  Donors can track their donated weapons and see what is happening with tools made from the gun they donated. An online database will grow like a mustard seed, exposing violence.
• Since February of 2013 we have been a part of several special events in Colorado Springs, Denver, New York City, Washington D.C., Philadelphia, and more.  Shane Claiborne helped us launch our organization at the Justice Conference in Philadelphia in 2013 and we have been forging ever since.  We have worked with Mennonite Central Committee, The Simple Way, Children's Defense Fund, Middle Collegiate Church, Auburn Theological Seminary, St. Andrew United Methodist Church in Denver, CO, as well as various other churches and faith groups.  
  
• It is important to note that we are committed to working with interfaith groups as well.  The world needs to know we can work together peacefully.  While we have Anabaptist roots, we do not limit our work to our own faith group.  

The PeaceMaker Tour

"PeaceMaker" is an hour-long ceremony centered in the Christian faith in which a gun is forged into a garden tool while songs, art, stories, and scripture are shared. 

By the event's end a physical representation of God's prophecy of "beating your swords into plowshares" from Isaiah and Micah is created in actuality. People experience opportunities for healing, purpose, and a reinvigoration of imagination as a new reality is encountered in this physical representation of "forging peace."

The PeaceMaker tour combines aspects of prior events we've done with Shane Claiborne and other organizations like Middle Collegiate Church in NYC.  We have fine tuned it to be an invested experience for all involved.  

Speakers (click names for bios)

Benjamin Corey-Rocky Mountains Feb 6-8, 2015 
Audio-"What if God is actually waiting for us?"

Audio -"RAWtools wants to create a better world in the midst of this one."

Shane Claiborne-Pennsylvania- Fall TBA
Audio - "It was the U.S. with 270 million guns, ninety guns for every hundred people."

Risks & Challenges

• Our hurdles and risks are primarily the legal differences among gun laws from state to state.  It is certainly not illegal to do what we do, but there is a lot of law that changes from state to state with respect to the transfer of weapons.  Some require background checks, like Colorado, that we adhere to.  Certain guns are illegal (shortened barrel, etc.) and need to be run through the ATF and/or police.  We have been open with police and the ATF about our plans and have been encouraged by our conversations with each.  
• We have tried to apply for a Federal Firearms License through the ATF and have been told not to apply because we are (1) a non profit and (2) we are not reselling the guns.  There is currently no way for us to be classified.  It is exciting because we know we are a part of something new.  
  
•  We are currently talking with the ATF to be able to distribute literature on how a person can disable their gun so that it can no longer be classified as a firearm and shipped to RAWtools safely and legally.  Again, the processes are simple, and need to be respected and handled in plain sight.  We have nothing to hide.
• It's always hard to change the way a culture acts.  We need your help with this.  Its a grass roots movement that requires action by organizations and community members like you. 
• If we don't reach our funding goal all events will still take place and perks will be fulfilled.  Depending on the funding level reached, we will still add staff with adjusted employment levels and/or duration.  Updates in relation to this will be posted as the campaign draws to a close.

How You Can Help

Perks
FEATURED PERK:

$50 - Exchange: Gun for Garden Tool
We'll turn your gun into a garden tool. We'll walk you through simple steps to get the gun to us legally. Then we'll send a garden tool made from your gun back to you. Now you have the opportunity to change the narrative of of your gun into a narrative of creation through your new tool. Track what you do with the tool and we'll share it online. We can usually make more than one tool. Someone else will get a a tool from your gun and tell their stories, Be the initiative for new creation stories. US ONLY.

$5 - A hand written personal thank you signed by our founding board of directors.  A photo post card with a picture from a RAWtools event.
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$10 - Poster

$25 - T-Shirt with 2 options: 
Peacemaker T-Shirt with blank back
OR
Gun to Flower with "I Am A Part Of The Revolution" on back
 
 

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RAWtools Leather Work Gloves-Medium duty gloves great for blacksmithing, landscaping, gardening, and all around creation care!

$50 - A RAWtools planter box with an anvil and white stripe wrapping the sides and front as a symbol of peace.  Mark your home as a place of peace and nonviolence.

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$125 - RAWtools Garden Mattock with a hoe on one side and fork on the other.  Great for use in gardens for planting, harvesting, and maintenance.  Metal is forged from a gun, providing high quality steel.  An olive branch is hand burned into each handle, carrying the promise of peace and creation.  No two tools are alike, each has its own number to track it to the gun it was made from, allowing you to be a part of the new narrative.  Share pictures of your flowers and harvest and tell stories about your tool at rawtools.org.  

$350 - Guerilla Gardening Toolkit! Turn a neglected part of your community into a beautiful garden!  Includes our Hand Spade and Garden Hoe, Gloves, T-shirt, all arriving in a Window Planter Box.
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$750 - Get VIP access to one of our PeaceMaker tour dates.  Try your hand as a blacksmith while hanging out with the guest speaker.  Christian Piatt in Denver on Jan. 17, 2015; Shane Claiborne in Pennsylvania around Easter 2015; Kurt Willems in Seattle on June 6, 2015.

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$1,000 - Be part of a group of 24 that spend a weekend in the Rocky Mountains, Feb 6-8, 2015.  An hour west of Colorado Springs, we'll spend the weekend hearing Ben Corey's story as well as blacksmith and nonviolent training.  The Peacemaker tour gets stretched to allow more time to reflect and take in our call to be peacemakers.  Room and Board included.  You also get a Guerrilla Gardening Toolkit! Shuttle transportation from Colorado Springs airport to and from event also included.

$5,000 - We'll bring the PeaceMaker tour to your city.  Dates available from August of 2015 through July of 2016.  We'll pack up our forge and anvil and hit the road.  The event can include artists and stories from your community, blacksmithing and/or nonviolence training depending on location.  We're flexible and we want to work with you!
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Other Ways You Can Help

• Spread the news about our campaign!  Social Media sharing via the Indiegogo share tools at the top of this page.  Email a link to our campaign to friends and get the word out.  Use the hashtags #swordstoplows and #RAWtools to spread the word in social media.
• Can't give money?  Donate your gun instead!  Email Mike[at]rawtools.org for instructions.
• Ask your police or sheriff department what happens to the confiscated weapons after their respective litigation has ended.  Maybe RAWtools can use them!  We'll help you work with them when they show interest!
• Choose nonviolence.  Make it a habit.
  
  
  Expenses
• Our expenses are largely made of travel and production costs of our events as well as labor for making tools.  "Salaries" are a total of both the full time and half time position and represent 1 year's employment.  We are mindful that each salary is below the median income for the area in which they live with respect to their family size.