Barb


What kind of items do you fix?

I mend clothes. Sometimes I use a machine, but I prefer to hand mend. I love patching jeans and darning holes in sweaters.

When did you first start volunteering with Repair Café Toronto?

I am a new volunteer at the Repair Café. I’ve been volunteering there since October 2016.

Day Job

Working at a church in a drop-in for people facing homelessness, addiction, mental health issues, etc.

Quote

“I am done with great things and big things, great institutions and big success, and I am for those tiny, invisible molecular moral forces that work from individual to individual, creeping through the crannies of the world like so many rootlets, or like the capillary oozing of water, yet which if you give them time, will rend the hardest monuments of man’s pride.”
William James, 1899.

How did you learn your skills?

I learned mending skills by making blue jeans fit right, by being influenced by living in India and the Arctic, and by looking at mending posts on Pinterest!

Favourite Location?

Toronto Reference Library, and the library at Broadview and Gerrard.

Why did you start getting interested in repairing things?

I love mending because it saves the world one pair of blue jeans at a time, and it turns old clothes into works of art. And . . . people in other cultures have always known how to do this.

What does it mean to you to volunteer at Repair Café Toronto?

To be a volunteer at the Repair Café means that we can share what we love doing with others. That’s satisfying.

Most Memorable Repair?

Why should people get involved with Repair Café Toronto?

Why should people get involved with the Repair Café? Because everyone has gifts to share and we all benefit from recycling our “stuff” and building community at the same time.

Where you see Repair Café Toronto in five years?

Having Repair Cafés in every library, as a normal place to hang out, have things fixed and build community.