Repair Café: Framingham Fixes
Step away from your toaster!
Just because it no longer works you shouldn’t throw it out. Instead, bring it to the Framingham Repair Café, where you’ll meet your neighbors, grab some coffee, and watch and participate with experts repairing your inoperative appliances, torn clothes, broken lamps, etc. For free!
What is a Repair Café?
The Repair Cafe concept is an attempt to reverse our society’s throw away culture. We throw out vast amounts of stuff. Even things with almost nothing wrong, and which just need a simple repair.
The problem is that most people don’t know how to fix things, and often it costs more to have an expert repair something than to simply replace it. But replacing things rather than repairing them wastes raw materials and energy, increases CO2 emissions and fills our overflowing landfills. The EPA says that within just one year, half to three quarters of annual resource inputs to industrial economies are returned to the environment as waste!
The Repair Café concept arose to counter this. It started in the Netherlands, and was formulated by Martine Postma, at the time an Amsterdam-based journalist/publicist. In 2010, she started the Repair Café Foundation. This foundation provides support to local groups around the world wishing to start their own Repair Café.
How does a Repair Café work?
Repair Cafés are scheduled events that take place in free meeting places and they’re all about repairing things (together). You’ll find expert volunteers, with repair skills in all kinds of fields They help repair items such as clean and mendable clothing, knitted and crocheted items, lamps, small appliances, computers and other electronics, bikes, outdoor power equipment, toys, and jewelry. They also can sharpen knives, scissors, and garden tools. Visitors pay only for needed parts, and when possible are encouraged to bring parts with them to save time. Visitors bring their broken items from home and together with the specialists start making their repairs. It’s an ongoing learning process. The visitor who has nothing to repair can enjoy refreshments or lend a hand with someone else’s repair job.
Press
- ‘Repair Cafes’ in Mass. build community by restoring busted home goods once destined for landfills March 3rd, 2023
- WBUR’s The Common: A cafe for broken belongings March 3rd, 2023
- NPR Sunday Edition: Repair cafes are back after the pandemic, and they’re only getting more popular March 5th, 2023
Repair Cafés near you
Visit Bolton Local’s Repair Cafe page to learn more about Repair Cafe.
Framingham had its first Repair Café on June 8th, 2019. It is sponsored by the Rotary Club of Framingham, with help from the First Parish Church of Framingham, and the Transition Framingham group.
If you’d like to volunteer at the next one, please fill out our Google Form!