Dawn Blackman, a minister at Champaign (Ill.) Church of the Brethren, was one of the first community leaders to receive a gardening tool made from guns in a “Guns to Garden Tools” event this summer, according to a report published by Illinois Newsroom.
Randolph St. Community Gardens, where Blackmon is coordinator, hosted the “weekend of peace” event, with leadership from the Champaign-Urbana Interfaith Alliance and the Ministerial Alliance of Champaign-Urbana & Vicinity and support from Champaign Church of the Brethren, Champaign-Urbana Moms Demand Action, and the Central Illinois Mosque and Islamic Center (CIMIC) in Urbana.
The blacksmith collective RAWTools, a Mennonite-sponsored group based in Colorado, did the work of transforming guns into yard signs and shovels for distribution to various local gardens.
This article originally appeared in Messenger. Subscribe to Messenger here.