On Saturday, March 18, Repair Café visited Downsview Park in the Keele and Sheppard neighbourhood. Quite a few new volunteers joined us for this event. We worked on a variety of household items and many visitors had theirs fixed.
The continuing success of the Repair Café has a lot to do with the different groups of volunteer fixers that are growing, like our clothing fixers. We now have a core group of clothing fixers whose experience at our events is typical — they enjoy not just interacting with visitors but with each other. It’s what makes a repair cafe a special social event.
Below, three clothing fixers share their thoughts about what Repair Café means to them:
Liz (left): “Repair Café gives me the opportunity to give action to my preference for a world where we reuse, recycle and repair what we can, instead of creating more garbage. At the café, I teach visitors to fix a variety of items, e.g. how to darn their socks, replace zippers in otherwise very usable clothing, and put patches on clothing so it lasts just a bit longer. ”
Sera (right): “I look forward to joining the Repair Café and fixing things each month. It is wonderful to solve the problem that comes with each item. I also enjoy sharing my sewing skills and am gratified to see the happy faces of the visitors.”
Jung-Hee (left): “One of the reasons why I keep coming back to Repair Café is the community of clothing fixers, but I also enjoy learning from other fixers. I love the fact that Repair Café promotes sustainability and just the basic idea of taking care of things.”
Our fixers enjoy working together on difficult challenges. Below, new fixer Kenny (left) chats with long-time fixers Louis (right) and Rene about a stubborn microwave oven.
From time to time, our fixers come across some very special items. The two photos below shows a hundred-year-old photo album that has been repaired by our fixer, Andy. You can see Andy’s face in the mirror on the cover of the album!
More photos are available on our Facebook page.
If you would like to meet our fixers and get some help with your broken items, don’t miss our next Repair Café! We will be at Parkdale Library on Saturday April 22.
We are looking for more volunteers to join us. For details, feel free to visit our website.