Of the 34 broken items brought to the first-ever repair café held at the San Geronimo Valley Community Gym on Sunday, volunteers fixed 25—and they offered advice on the rest. The event, put on by the community center’s NextGen young adult group, joined an international movement begun in Amsterdam to encourage people to fix things instead of throwing them away. “The thing about climate is it’s such a huge issue that it’s really hard to know what you can do,” organizer Corey Van Gelder said. “So this felt like a very tangible, fun action.” Fixers sat behind tables with tools dedicated to the items they specialized in repairing, from guitars, bikes and appliances to jewelry, books and clothes. At one table, Janet Hughes, a Forest Knolls resident, reattached the flannel lining of a sleeping bag. “People are always asking, ‘Will you mend this for me?’” she said. “And on my personal time, no. But when it is a community thing like this, it’s great.” At another table, Hannah Wilton, from Lagunitas, worked with fixer Stephanie Fein to patch a sweater. “It’s one of my favorites,” Ms. Wilton said. Ms. Fein, 71, started sewing in seventh grade and enjoys making napkins and tablecloths as gifts. “But I’m also a mender,” she said. “We live in such a disposable society.” Inverness residents Dinah and Noah Stroe brought in a wooden chair they picked up off of a street in San Francisco. “It was just in pieces, like a kit,” she said. By the end of the day, the chair was ready for use at their kitchen table. Valley resident Beth Wolf brought in a mini dirt bike she bought off Craigslist for her son three years ago. For the past two years it sat idle, needing a clutch—until fixers replaced the part on Sunday. Items that couldn’t be repaired in the three-hour window were analyzed by fixers, who offered possible next steps. Renee Jordan brought fixer Kathy Edwards a copy of Edgar Allen Poe’s 1884 “The Raven” that a boyfriend gave her 40 years ago. She reads it every Halloween to her kids and wants to pass it down to her grandchildren. But the pages are worn, and the binding has fallen apart. As a former bookbinder who now does repairs for the San Anselmo library, Ms. Edwards was the person to ask. “I know how to make things,” she said. “And when you know how to make things, then you know how to repair them.” But besides scraping the gum off the cover, she was hesitant to do too much to “The Raven,” because the antiquity of the book is what makes it special, she said. The first repair café was hosted by Dutch environmentalist Martine Postma in 2009; since then, 1,500 cafés have been registered in 33 countries. “The whole idea of a gift economy really struck me when reading about these,” Ms. Van Gelder said. “The intimacy of, let’s say, you have this dress that you love but you can’t wear it anymore. But if somebody can help you fix it and you get to wear it, it’s such a rewarding thing for both the fixer and the receiver.” More volunteers already have come forward for future cafés, said organizer Anna De Benedictis. “Repair places can be inaccessible, either financially or by being very far away,” she said. “So, we’re hoping to do it quarterly, as seasons change, when people start to think about throwing things away and cleaning up.”
Valley joins global fix-it, don’t-toss-it movement with first-ever repair café
