Repair Cafes are events where you’ll find volunteers with tools and supplies, available to fix broken household objects while offering instruction in the form of hands on help.
Volunteers at WNC Repair Cafe share a common concern for:
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.
Building resilient communities: Empowering our community with the skills and resources to prosper in a sustainable economy.
How does it work?
Most volunteers offer some specialized expertise such as bicycle repair, electronics, appliances, furniture, sewing, small engines, etc. Some volunteers just have a generalized knowledge of how things work and can manage many repairs. No volunteer knows everything...and that's OK. Repairs are often a collaborative process, where multiple volunteers may team up to take on challenging jobs.
Part of what makes repair events exciting is that we don't always know what we're going to repair that night. We keep a stock of common supplies (glues, cleaners, batteries, lamp sockets, etc) and we do have an array of specialty tools on hand. It's not required, but it is recommended that volunteers bring their own common tools.
Visitors will sign a waiver and check in their broken items at the front desk when they arrive. Usually the organizer will match a particular repair job to the appropriate volunteer. As the event gets busier, the organizer will keep a list of repair jobs in order of who was first in line. When the volunteer becomes available and ready for the next repair they can then pick from the list which job they're most comfortable with. We do have some slow nights and some busy nights, however, on average a volunteer may take on 3 or 4 repairs in a single night.
Sometimes items can't be fully repaired...that's OK too. Best practice is to first collaborate with the organizer or another volunteer to see if they have a different approach. If spare parts are needed, the organizer can usually help locate a vendor. More often than necessary, items are not designed to be repaired at all and there is no safe or reliable way to do so. Visitors know that there is no guarantee of successful repair. Based on our prior events, we typically have an 80% successful repair rate.
Education is central to our mission. We think it's important that we rethink our consumption-driven economy, and as a volunteer, one way to approach this is helping to demystify the repair process. Even when a successful repair of a particular item is not possible, we want to give visitors the confidence to consider repair when something else in their house needs fixing.
Volunteers are Needed!
A reasonable ratio of volunteers to participants is essential to a successful night. If you have a
specific skill set or a general enthusiasm for sharing DIY knowledge, then please, we need your help! Volunteers of all skill levels are greatly appreciated.
If you're interested, please let us know via email at WNCRepairCafe@gmail.com or call (828) 808-6417
