Dutch concept of ‘Repair Cafe’ coming to Lindsay library
Kawartha Lakes Public Library will be hosting the Repair Cafe Peterborough at the Lindsay branch library on Saturday June 22, from 1-4 pm.
Every day we throw away large amounts of items often just because they need a simple repair. It may be because we don’t have the right tool to fix it, or because we just don’t know how. The Repair Café can help you with this.
You can bring your broken items and take a seat and watch. Or you can learn from one of the Repair Café volunteers how to fix it for yourself. The Repair Café volunteers will be there to help you repair anything from small appliances to electronics to clothing to jewellery and more.
“Often we will use an appliance until it stops working and throw it away because they don’t know how to fix them. Or we will toss out a shirt because of a small rip in the seam, then go and purchase another,” said Jamie Anderson, CEO of Kawartha Lakes Public Library. “In the old days, nothing was thrown out and people learned to fix things.”
The Repair Café’s purpose is keep items out of the landfill, says Anderson, but there’s more to it than that.
“People can come to learn how to solder a small part in the toaster to bring it back to life or even just learn how to sew a button back on to a shirt. Simple skills like this were common place 50 years ago, but that is no longer the case,” the CEO says.
“But on top of that, the Repair Cafés are a great way to bring our community together.”
The Repair Café concept began in the Netherlands in 2009. The first Repair Café event showed there is a need for people to learn how to do their own repairs and demonstrated the value of sharing knowledge with others in our communities. Now there are chapters throughout the world, including the Repair Café Peterborough.
You can find more information about the Repair Café Peterborough online at facebook.com/repaircafeptbo.
Join them in the Meeting Room at the Lindsay Branch Library for this free event and maybe we can help bring that old toaster back to life. But please, only one item per person.
Anderson says he hopes people will be inspired by what they see and want to act on it.
