Gift cards for guns: Buyback program turning firearms into gardening tools to be held in Worcester Saturday – MassLive.com

UMass Memorial Health is participating in a nationwide effort to get guns off the street and turn them into things that create beauty.

The health system’s Goods for Guns program is holding a gun buyback event from 9 a.m. to noon on June 11 at City Welding & Fabrication on Ararat Street called “Guns to Gardens,” according to a press release from UMass Memorial Health.

The guns will be crushed on site and the metal will be given to a blacksmithing class which will craft the metal into garden tools, according to a spokesperson for UMass Memorial.

“By adding a ‘sword to plowshare’ layer to buybacks, we are able to bring the process of transforming something that harms communities into something that brings life to communities,” Mike Martin, executive director of, RAWtools- a partner organization of Guns to Gardens, said. “Having artists and communities as a part of this process allows us to more meaningfully engage in the trauma of gun violence and the opportunity to heal from its harm.”

UMass Memorial Health, along with the Worcester County District Attorney’s Office, will be supplying gift cards to anyone who comes to the event to exchange their gun.

The amount of the gift cards will vary depending on the type of gun- $25 for a rifle or replica gun, $50 for a pistol and $75 for a semiautomatic weapon of any kind.

People dropping off their guns will not be asked their names and will not be required to turn in gun registration. the guns do need to be unloaded and inside a bag.

While gift cards will not be offered for non-operable guns, ammunition and firearm accessories, they will also be accepted at the program.

Over 20 years, UMass Memorial’s Goods for Guns program has collected more than 3,700 guns alongside local police departments, according to the press statement.

“An unsecured weapon in the home is a public health danger that leads to more frequent homicides, burglaries, lethal domestic violence, accidental shootings and suicide in the home,” Dr. Michael Hirsh, a trauma surgeon at UMass Memorial Children’s Medical Center, said. “Please honor the memories of all our citizens, young and old, harmed by gun violence by bringing in your unwanted/unsecured weapon(s) (unloaded please) in a plain plastic or paper bag.”

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