The Sharing Depot at 1803 Danforth is now open and it is bustling with many visitors, workshops, and a lively Twitter feed. Like house parties, games and sports? There are many very cool things in sporting goods, and with 118 items in the games section, this place looks fun!  They have a community-building spirit as well, sharing out what is occasionally indispensable, but often is clutter-your-place stuff that .

The Sharing Depot is dedicated to sharing in a way that is a spin-off of the highly successful (and successfully duplicated in other cities) Tool Library idea. In fact, The Institute for a Resource-Based Economy (IRBE), which started the Toronto Tool Library, is the same inspiring non-profit which now brings us The Sharing Depot, the first “Library of Things.”

Thanks to a cool $30,000 crowdfunding project, the Sharing Depot is starting in stride. There are deep wooden shelving units that hold several of everything you could imagine for indoor or outdoor games, for a camping excursion, and for a million other healthy activities that people sometimes don’t get to do because of various reasons. As well, the place itself is set up to be a hub for workshops and various events, and promises to have a number of very interesting things going on this summer.

You can join for $50, and with additional (very low) fee borrow infinite numbers of both wacky and super-useful things, or join for $100 with no fees. There’s even a $25 membership which means you are invited to “Swapping Events” and can sign up for all sorts of cool upcoming workshops. They are actively planning future workshops: ‘How to Plan your 1st Camping Trip’, ‘Tasty and Easy Cooking Options on a Camping Trip’, ‘Overview of Camping Options in Ontario’, ‘Survivalist Topics’ and more. They are also seeking presenters who they can potentially pay, in just about any topic, including “Woodworking, Electronics, Laser Cutting, and 3D printing classes. A wide range of hardware and software topics are welcome.

Minimize your impact, free yourself of clutter, and remember, before you go to a big box rental place, first browse the ever-expanding “library of things.” The Sharing Depot is challenging the idea of a consumer society in which we all potentially horde way too much underused stuff, and they’re right. The spirit is great and the idea is a cool one!

About the Author

SK Dyment has been a cartoonist and illustrator for many years and has been published in over two dozen Canadian indy magazines and journals. SK loves sketching passing interpretations of intriguing people in pen-and-ink, and is often seen attending various activist-oriented events around Toronto. He is also available for quick illustrations of all sorts as well as more serious forms of illustration. SK Dyment maintains a website @ www.graphicrecording.ca