'Repair cafe' to be held at Northview Church
By Dennis Hill
Published in News on April 22, 2017 11:02 PM
Northview Baptist Church will hold a "repair cafe" on Saturday, June 3 at the church at 600 Patetown Road.
What do you do with a broken toaster? Or with a bike when the wheel runs out of true? Or with a sweater full of moth holes? Toss it? No way. Starting from 8 a.m. and ending at 2 p.m, various volunteer repair experts will be available to help make all possible repairs free of charge. Tools and materials will also be on hand. People attending the event will bring along their broken items from home: toasters, lamps, hair dryers, clothes, bikes, toys, crockery... anything that is broken is welcome.
By promoting repairs, the church wants to help reduce the mountains of waste people produce every day.
Organizers said the repair cafe is also meant to put neighbors in touch with each other in a new way. And to discover that a lot of know-how and practical skills can be found close to home.
The repair café concept arose in the Netherlands in 2009 and was formulated by Martine Postma, at the time an Amsterdam-based journalist. In 2010, she started the Repair Café Foundation (see Repaircafe.org). This foundation provides support to local groups around the world wishing to start their own Repair Café.