A Repair Cafe is a place where you’ll find volunteers with tools and supplies, available to fix broken objects while offering instruction in the form of hands on help. This is a free program 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 our volunteers to make the necessary repairs to keep it running.
Repair Cafes across the world have helped build resilient communities by offering access to hands on experience in the art of repair. At WNC Repair Cafe we’ll gather volunteers from the area for an evening of:
- Helping a neighbor: Restore valuable material items at no cost of labor.
- Learning by doing: Gain experience in practical hands-on skills.
- Sharing ideas: Gain insight and appreciation of how things made, repaired, and disposed of.
- Diverting valuable resources from the landfill: Engage in practical action on waste reduction.
- Building resilient communities: Empower our local community with the resources to prosper in a sustainable economy
Repair Cafe in Practice
Repair Cafe Origins:
The first Repair Café was held in October 2009 in Amsterdam, and was so successful that founder Martine Postma continued organizing several Repair Café meetings at different locations in Amsterdam. These caught the attention of more and more people and the media all over the country. By 2010 she had founded the Repair Café Foundation.
Repair Café Foundation aims to a) reintroducing the art of repairing to the modern, local communities; b) retaining and spreading repair knowledge and skills; c) to promote social cohesion by bringing together neighbors from very different backgrounds and motives in a setting of inspiring and accessible meetings.
Fast forward to 2020, where globally there are now over two thousand repair cafes on six continents, notwithstanding similar models operating under different names or as standalone events. At Repair Cafes around the world people are reminded that there is an alternative to a throwaway culture.