The West Bethel Makerspace is a free tool library, woodworking shop, digital manufacturing studio, and member lounge founded by a group of rural carpenters, artists, and technology professionals. We want to share the cost and environmental impact of buying and maintaining high quality equipment while offering everyone in our community an affordable and state of the art environment to develop skills, spread knowledge, and bring dreams to life.

WBMS will offer memberships, events, and classes on everything from laser cutting to fine wood joinery in our 2500 sq ft facility. Our free tool library (developed in collaboration with the Bethel Area Public Library) will stock DIY necessities like hand tools as well as professional-level equipment like table saws and flooring nailers. Our fully stocked woodworking and digifab shops will host tools like a cabinet-grade saw stop table saw, Shapoko large format CNC milling machine, and 4-color auto-changing FDM 3D printer, all loaned by various local professionals who see the benefit in sharing workspace.

Today, we have the keys, most of the tools and have begun build out of the space for our specific needs. With your support, we can turn it into a fully functioning, safe, and welcoming makerspace for our community.

These funds would provide the critical bridge between having a space and opening our doors.

Rather than rushing growth or overextending ourselves, your support allows us to complete our build-out, install essential equipment, and cover our first few months of rent while memberships, classes, and events scale up.

We can’t wait to see what the community will make!