News

May 30, 2023

Repair Cafe initiative expanding in North Carolina

CARY, N.C. — Things break: toys, clocks, chairs and toasters. Instead of throwing them away, Repair Café, a worldwide volunteer effort, works to fix things instead of sending them to the dump. A

CARY, N.C. — Things break: toys, clocks, chairs and toasters. Instead of throwing them away, Repair Café, a worldwide volunteer effort, works to fix things instead of sending them to the dump.

A Repair Café is a free workshop where residents can bring common household items in and get them repaired, rather than throwing them away. Repairs are done by volunteers.

There are over 2,500 Repair Cafés worldwide. People bring in items like lamps, furniture, toys and jewelry.

One volunteer with a hand in this initiative is Caitlyn Hill. She said ever since she was little, she wanted to know how things worked. She said one of the things she’s always been fascinated with fixing is clocks. But now, she said, she’s a jack-of-all-trades.

“I did successfully help fix an old cuckoo clock, and we hooked back up the alarm that had gotten disconnected from the gear systems,” Hill said.

Hill said the advantage of the Repair Café is that everything that comes in is usually already broken, so it gives her an excuse to learn how to fix things.

“So much of our culture has become this either, this deliberate obsolescence or just standard view or it stopped working, I’m going to go buy a new one, that’s everything that is pushed on us,” Hill said.

The Repair Café tech said this initiative is also great because others can learn new skills, it builds a sense of community, and it could help the environment.

“We are deliberately trying to get people out of the mindset of 'throw it away.' We do not want things to hit the trash stream if they don’t have to,” Hill said. “Even if individuals in question don’t want to keep it, if we can keep people in the mindset of 'make it work again,' then it can go out to a buy nothing group or a Facebook marketplace.”

Part of the Repair Café experience is that if a volunteer can’t fix a household item you bring in, they will point you in the direction of a repair specialist. The Repair Café in North Carolina has been bringing new workshops to the area as this idea spreads. This includes places like Asheville, Greensboro, Raleigh, Durham and Oxford.