Goals

Kindling a love of craftsmanship

Event at local woodshop

Woodshop members tour furniture maker Bob Spangler's shop.

Bainbridge Island Community Woodshop exists to bring woodworkers together to learn from and share with each other as we help our community. We have an active community service program and have begun offering classes through our local parks and recreation department. We are also working on our big dream: building and running a community woodshop of about 4,000 square feet.

How we started

We formed in 2008, after one woodworker brought back photographs

Woodshop in Green Valley

The community woodshop in Green Valley, Arizona.

of a community woodworking shop that has operated in Green Valley, Arizona, for almost 20 years. After the local newspaper ran a story about the possibility of building something similar on our island, nearly 100 people showed up at several community meetings and joined our membership list.

We are organized as a non-profit corporation under laws of the State of Washington. In early 2010, the IRS recognized us as a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization.

Our goals

One of our major goals is to build and operate a community woodshop. The concept behind this is simple: If we own and operate a shop together, we can assemble a greater variety of tools, we can teach and learn from one another, we can share our passion with people who are new to woodworking, and we can develop projects that benefit our community.

We are also dedicated to offering classes for woodworkers of all skill levels and doing community service through projects involving woodworking. Through all of these activities, we intend to educate the community in the safe use of tools, the proper techniques of woodworking and the steps needed to maintain woodworking equipment. Our goal is to maintain the long tradition of woodworking in our community for the benefit of everyone, from senior citizens to youths.

  • Not your typical bus shelter

    Bus shelter framing The first houses in the new Ferncliff Avenue affordable housing project are just beginning to be built, but a beautiful amenity of the neighborhood—a timberframed bus shelter—is already in place. Volunteers from Bainbridge Island Community Woodshop assembled and finished the structure in mid November, using wood from trees that had to be cleared from the site to make way for the development. Coyote Woodworks, a Bainbridge sawmill company, milled the wood, and timberframers at Salisbury Construction cut the joinery. See how the structure took shape.