Repair Cafe North Carolina will be hosting an event at the Whitted Human Services Center in Hillsborough on Saturday, Nov. 16 from 1 to 5 p.m. The organization invites people to bring damaged items such as electronics, furniture, jewelry, or small appliances to the event, where they can be coached through the repair process by volunteers. All Repair Cafe events are free to attend.
Repair Cafe NC will be hosting an event in Hillsborough tomorrow afternoon. (Photo courtesy of Repair Cafe NC)
Since its founding by Martine Postma in Amsterdam in 2009, the Repair Cafe concept has grown into a global movement based on helping people reduce garbage, save money, and learn new skills by repairing items instead of throwing them away.
Don Fick and Tom Karches founded the North Carolina chapter in 2017.
“It was very much motivated by the recognition that small neighborhood repair shops, they used to be fairly common in communities all around the world. And those skills have aged out of our communities, those individual repair shop owners have retired,” said Fick, who continues to serve as the chapter’s director. “There’s a perception that consumer products are designed for obsolescence. They’re designed to be irreparable.”
Luke Dickerson, who is the main organizer of tomorrow’s Hillsborough event and who’s also one of the volunteer coaches, said he loves learning about people through the items they bring in.
“It’s been probably one of my favorite parts throughout all the events; surprisingly, a lot of the people that come in bring items of significant emotional value,” he said. “Being able to sit and talk to them and learn why it’s important to them, why they want to fix it, what skills they’ve learned throughout their life, and how we can add to those, it becomes a really nice connection to the community and the people around you.”
Even items that can’t be fixed can still sometimes be sources of interesting and educational moments at the Repair Cafe.
“Sometimes just sitting down and talking to someone about their repair for 45 minutes, to learn about how they were given this music box as a kid, and it was passed down through generations,” Dickerson said as an example. “And doing a little research on it and deciding not to fix it because you don’t want to risk taking it apart, but still sitting and talking to them. There’s definitely a very nice community aspect.”
A volunteer coach helps attendees with a repair at a past event. (Photo courtesy of Repair Cafe NC)
Fick also mentioned the special atmosphere at Repair Cafe events.
“There’s kind of an energy, a vibe in the room that is really unique,” he said. “Because it’s hands-on and participatory, people are engaged in it. And because we have a success rate of 65% or better, there are these little mini victories going on all around the room, which is really what brings the energy and the excitement to our events.”
However, there’s a broader purpose beyond just building community and learning skills.
“Since a lot of what we do is reducing the waste stream, there’s an educational component, an environmental component to it. There’s an economic justice component to it,” Fick said. “We’re helping people save money so that they’re not missing on a rent payment in order to buy a new vacuum cleaner. So there’s a lot of different dimensions to what we do.”
He was particularly proud of how the organization mobilized in western North Carolina in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Helene in September. He said they set up small clinics across Buncombe County that helped repair over 300 generators and chainsaws.
“That’s 300 tools that didn’t need to be purchased new, 300 tools that immediately went back out in the field and made a difference in people’s lives. And so it’s these kinds of skills that we’re fostering that make that kind of response in a disaster possible,” he said. “I think one of the things that we’ve always believed, but we now have some really hard evidence, is how repair helps support resilience in a community.”
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