2026 Schedule Coming Soon!

Hi Friends of WNC Repair Cafe! 

A Repair Cafe is a place where you’ll find volunteers with tools and supplies, available to fix broken objects while offering instruction hands-on experience in the art of repair.   Repair Cafes are free programs, where you are encouraged to bring in your broken appliance, stuck zipper, rusty tools, old bicycle, dull pruning shears – whatever you can imagine – and work with volunteers to make the necessary repairs to keep it running.

Repair Cafes around the world help build resilient communities by:

Helping​ ​a​ ​neighbor​:​ Restoring valuable material items at no cost of labor. 

Sharing skills: Teaching repair skills and encouraging hands-on learning

Sharing ​ideas:​ Sharing insight and appreciation of how things made, repaired, and disposed of. 

Diverting​ ​resources​ ​from​ ​the​ ​landfill:​ Engaging in practical action on waste reduction.

Empowering our community with the skills and resources to prosper in a sustainable economy.  

WNC Repair Cafe started in Mills River in 2018,  and following the pandemic, expanded to various communities in Buncombe and Haywood Counties. For 2026, we're proud to announce we are including regular events in Weaverville, as well as expanded pop-up workshops in Madison and Yancey Counties, along with continued partnerships with Henderson County Repair Cafes.   Repair Cafes are expanding rapidly across North Carolina and the United States. We are proud to be a part of this tradition of helping neighbors, thriftiness, good conversation, and passing down skills to future generations.

 

2018 WNC Repair Cafe Volunteers in Mills River NC
 

Along with our expansion in 2026, we'll be focusing on improving the experience for visitors and volunteers alike.  For the next two months, WNC Repair Cafe is building an advisory team to help organize and improve a variety of metrics, including successful repair rate, visitor educational experience and volunteer satisfaction. This is a lot of work, so please be patient as we head in 2026!  We'll be releasing our schedule shortly after the new year.  For now, you can expect an ambitious schedule of over 24 workshops, and in-person repair workshops to resume in February 2026. 

2024 WNC Repair Cafe Volunteers in Asheville

2025 WNC Repair Cafe Volunteer Sewing Crew

interesting in Helping? There are many ways you can help:

Join our Mailing list and be the first to receive notices of new events by sending an Email to WNCRepairCafe@gmail.com

Follow us on Social Media @WNCRepairCafe

Are you a skilled fixer? We need your help!

Do you have other skills you are excited to offer? Can you provide snacks? Help with fundraising, media, or data management?  We need your help too!

Are you in Weaverville? Help us build our volunteer base for 2026 workshops

 

 

2025 Schedule

 

2025 is going to be a big year of recovery for Western North Carolina and community repair will be as important as ever.  We're pleased to announce a robust schedule of events with our community partners at Buncombe County Public Libraries, Asheville Tool Library and Haywood Community College, while also leaving room for Pop-up repair events at the Organic Growers School spring conference, Asheville Maker's Faire.  Stay tuned as we'll be adding MORE pop-up events in early spring and summer, along with a special FREE high-school repair education program taking place in Haywood County this spring.   

Sewing and Mending Repairs include: all things that can be fixed with thread, including hand stitching and those that require sewing machines and sergers.  Zipper repairs and boot/shoe glue repairs will be offered as well.  Sorry, no sewing machine repairs are offered here. 

House Hold Repairs include: all small home appliances, tools, heirlooms, small engines, furniture, sewing machines and almost anything else you can imagine. "If it comes from your house and if fits in your car, we'll fix it for free."  Sewing repairs are typically not offered here, but may be offered in the future.  Additionally, we reserve the right to limit repairs for concerns of safety, for example, CRT TVs, firearms, automobile repairs are not offered. 

Please email WNCRepairCafe@gmail.com for questions and volunteer opportunities. 

 

Post-Helene 2024 Schedule Update

 October was a huge month for all of us in Western Carolina.  

 

Back in 2018, when we first started, our press releases were already including language like "building resilient communities."  Last month we finally saw what those words actually mean, and now, more so than ever I'm incredibly honored to be a part of this community we've built.  

Huge thanks as always to the many volunteers that have helped in the past, and especially to those that came out in October to one of our many disaster relief repair pop-ups.  In the three weeks following Helene, the course of 10 pop-up repair events, our volunteers looked at over 600 Chainsaws and at least 50 generators, all while boasting a nearly 90% success rate! Because of volunteer help, and the foundation we've laid over the past 6 years, we are now in a position to literally define how community repair groups CAN be mobilized quickly to respond to natural disasters in their communities. 

Communication was a little hectic for a while there! Sorry for all the confusion coming from me about new dates, and cancelled events, etc.  Here is an updated calendar to clear up any confusion about the remaining schedule for 2024:

Reaching New Communities in Haywood County

 

WNC Repair Cafe is expanding further west into Haywood County - We're very grateful for our friends at Haywood Community College and First United Methodist Church for welcoming us into this already resilient and tight-knit community.  Although the WNC Repair Cafe leadership will remain constant, this is almost like starting a new program entirely from scratch; we're actively recruiting local volunteers in the area, so please help us spread the word, and we're looking forward to meeting everyone in April!

Stitching Stuffies

 

We're very excited to announce these special children's repair workshops, hosted by Buncombe Co. libraries and made possible with a grant from Culture of Repair! 

 

We believe that sewing is a safe and accessible repair skill that children can learn with help from experienced adults, and we believe that teaching a child to repair their stuffed animals is a great opportunity to foster a culture of repair starting at a very young age.  

 

These workshops are about more than just teaching skills. Focusing on tactile, accessible, hands-on skills provides an opportunity to introduce concepts of environmental sustainability that feel concrete, and immediate, as opposed to solely abstract learning.  Children have an intimate connection with their stuffed animals, and through repairing their stuffed animals, which they can then take home, children will have a daily reminder of their ability to improve their material world; a potential direct connection to positive environmental outcomes and their improved self-esteem.  

 

We'll begin the workshop with a short lesson that puts the act of repair in the context of environmental and economic sustainability. Following the lesson, one of our skilled repair coaches will demonstrate a simple overhand stitch, and then we'll break into small groups where children can learn to repair their own ripped or town stuffed animals. Each small group of children will have it's own skilled repair coach to guide children through their own repairs. All children will go home with a stuffed animal that they have successfully repaired on their own.

 

Attendance is limited to 20 children for each day. Sign up following the links below:

 

February 22 from 4:30 to 6:00, Pack Memorial Library

 

March 6 from 4:30 to 6:00, West Asheville Public Library 

 

March 9 from 10:30-12:00, Pack Memorial Library

 

March 23 from 12:30-2:00, West Asheville Public Library

 

Do you have stuffed animals you'd like to donate to the program? Drop off locations are at the Pack Library children's room and the West Asheville Library. Do you have a large lot you'd like to donate? Email Dan at WNCRepairCafe@gmail.com and we can arrange a pickup. 

 

2024 WNC Repair Cafe Schedule

2023 was a big year for Community Repair in western North Carolina:

• WNC Repair Cafe organized over a dozen repair events hosted by the Asheville Tool Library and Buncombe County libraries. 
  
• With help from our friends at Repair Cafe NC, WNC Repair Cafe joined the Triangle Repair Network and is now a registered 501-c3 non-profit in the state of North Carolina!
• We have been awarded our first grant! (Much more on this later)
• We expanded our repair events to reach Hendersonville, while working to create a template that makes it easier to maintain repair cafes under new leadership in other NC communities. 

We're starting off 2024 with an expanded schedule, reaching more WNC communities:

We'll return to the Asheville Tool Library for SIX general repair events, on bimonthly intervals, each on the first Thursday of that month.   All events are from 5:00-8:00 PM.  At these events, we'll be fixing nearly anything you might find in your house:  small appliances, lamps and other electrical items, tools, furniture, heirlooms, some electronics, small engines, bicycles, and more.  

Buncombe county libraries will continue to host mending events.  Here, we'll fix anything that can be fixed with thread.   Our 2024 expanded mending event schedule is more irregular. 

All Buncombe County workshop dates are listed here:

please feel free to share, print and post where it can be seen!

We'll be adding more dates and special events as move into 2024.  Always check our events page for the most updated information, and as always, send an email to WNCRepairCafe@gmail.com if you have any questions. 

With Expanded Leadership, Repair Cafe Returns to Hendersonville

Those who have followed WNC Repair Cafe for a long time will know that we started in 2018 in the workshop of a working farm on the north edge of Henderson County.  Since the pandemic, and subsequent closing of that farm, we've found a wonderful home at the Asheville Tool Library and Buncombe County libraries.  Still, many of our visitors and volunteers alike travel from Henderson County.  Others have mentioned the drive is simply too far, especially for those who have difficulty driving at night. 

Given these circumstances, we are especially grateful for the Blue Ridge Community College Library and the efforts of local organizer Ann Swift for bringing WNC Repair Cafe back to Henderson County.  We'll start with sewing and mending for our first event, with a plan to expand into full service Repair Cafes for 2024.  This first event is only week away, but there has already been great enthusiasm and support from a suite of talented local volunteers.  This is all very exciting for us!

Our friends at Repair Cafe NC are making similar moves to expand access to Repair Cafes across the North Carolina piedmont.  To accomplish this, lead organizer Don Fick, is using a similar tactic: relying on local leadership to organize volunteers, coordinate with local venues and promote events.  

Are you interested in becoming a local Repair Cafe organizer under the North Carolina based Repair Cafe network?  Send us an email and we'll start a conversation!