by Patricia Habberjam
What is a ‘repair café?’ Wikipedia explains that the idea was first introduced to Amsterdam in 2009. In March 2010, a foundation was launched to help support local groups around the world to set up and operate their own Repair Cafés.
The idea is to enable local people to repair objects of everyday use by bringing people and their broken items together, in a convenient location, with volunteers who can help them. In this endeavour, Repair Café is part of a movement aiming to reduce waste and overconsumption, as well as planned obsolescence.
What a great idea! I decided to pitch it to my local WI group situated in Bishop’s Mills. The idea was explained at a meeting and was received positively. More thoughts and research went into it before an email went flying to the NG Library to ask if it would be interested in this idea. The CEO, Emily Farrell, turned out to be extremely enthusiastic and offered a room to set up in. More thoughts while I cogitated on what this might lead to. Realising that the offer of space from Emily was a heaven-sent opportunity, a quick decision was made to accept and a date in February was picked.
In the meantime, Facebook was asked if anyone would be interested in volunteering their time to help repair broken things. This produced a few replies, and one in particular, Chris, accepted. A film show on Plastic Waste, put on by Sustainable North Grenville, led to SNG being asked if it would be interested in supporting such an event? Jeff quickly replied in the affirmative, leading to a second volunteer.
A poster was produced and distributed on Facebook and locally, the North Grenville Times ran an advertisement, cookies were bought by Tricia and baked by Joan, coffee was made by Dave, and we found ourselves in the Norenberg branch of the North Grenville Library at noon on February 24.
People came with broken things to be fixed. We also had another potential volunteer leave his details. People looked in and asked what was going on. Next time, yes there will be a next time, in March, we look forward to more repairs.