In-Person Repair Café On Its Way Back!


Repair Café Toronto outside the Main Street Library helping the neighbours fix their broken household items.

Repair Café is on its way back with in-person events. The most recent was Saturday, August 8, when our team visited the Toronto Public Library’s Main Street branch to deliver a mini Repair Café. As the city has reopened for in-person activities after the pandemic, this was the latest one of the first few mini cafés we have offered in the last few months.

We had a few tents with work stations set up outside the library building in the backyard. It was great to see both familiar and new faces of volunteer fixers and general volunteers.

This café focused on fixing small appliances and household items. As a new Covid-19 safety measure to avoid having visitors to line up and to prevent overcrowding at the café, the library had provided pre-registration for anyone from the community to book their appointments with Repair Café.
The visitors who had signed up arrived as scheduled and brought with them their broken items. We received a variety of items, including an antique fountain, lamps, clocks, toaster, toaster oven, fan, dehumidifiers, sewing machine, and more. And thanks to the hard work and wonderful skills of our fixers, many of the broken items were brought back to life. The bell was ringing again with clapping after successful fixes. Even though not every item was fixable, our visitors were satisfied and showed their appreciation to the fixers who had tried their best to work on the items. We were glad to see that everyone was having a great time.

Our fixer Ed (left) and visitor Jane with her newly repaired lamp
Our fixers, Tom (left) and Dave (middle), with our happy visitor Cathy
Another fix from Dave for Nina’s clock

Our next mini event will be held at the Toronto Public Library Downsview branch on Saturday, August the 27th. We will have fixers for clothing, small appliances, general housewares, bikes, among others.
The library is providing pre-registration for those who want to get help from repair café. Click here for more information.
To find out the schedule of the Repair Café upcoming events, you can check our calendar here.
Hope to see you at one of our repair cafes soon!

Repair Cafe Toronto’s Organizing Team, including Paul (back centre), Fern, Saba, Wai Chu, Lon, and Alvin (clockwise).