Croton’s first ever Repair Cafe scores resounding success thanks to expert volunteers and superb organization.
Eighty-two broken items, along with their hopeful owners, passed through the doors of Croton's community center last Saturday. Many were saved to live another day.
Note to readers: In full disclosure, the author of this article is a member of the Croton Conservation Advisory Council (CCAC), which sponsored the Repair Cafe, and served as a volunteer during the event. Nevertheless, the Chronicle stands by the facts stated in this report.
From dusty closets and attics all over Croton, and sometimes beyond, they marched forth, filled with hope and in search of that one last chance.
First came the lamps. Art Deco lamps, Art Nouveau lamps, stubby little porcelain lamps with heavy ceramic bases, tall slender brass lamps with mica lampshades. Some looked so old they seemed to predate the dawn of electrification. Their loyal owners trembled with anticipation: Could Croton’s Repair Cafe volunteers bring them back to life and light?
Then came the electronics and the kitchen appliances. A yellow boom box a man bought in 1994 that had never worked. A mixer that would no longer mix. A toaster no self-respecting slice of bread would deign to enter. A laptop that had lost its memory—or at least had no memory to spare.
Paper shredders, broken earrings, torn window screens, coffee makers, even a bicycle, all made their way to the basement community room in Croton’s municipal building.
Last Saturday was Croton’s first ever Repair Cafe. The air was filled with good vibes, community spirit, and the occasional aroma of burning solder.
There were many moments of triumph, and some serious heroics. The wood working team spent three hours repairing a bar stool with a leather seat whose legs had fallen apart years before. (See photo below.) A torn and tattered pocket on a beautiful wool cardigan was so painstakingly back-seamed by the sewing team that it would never dare to tear again.
Repair Cafe volunteers are still tabulating the success rate (there were three basic categories recorded on the intake sheets: repaired, not repaired, and partially repaired) but the anecdotal verdict was that the repair rate was quite high. Sometimes there were false alarms (a steam cleaner that wasn’t really broken) or non-starters (a badly torn guitar case was referred to a shoe shop.)
But over the course of four hours, 82 items got intense treatment from volunteer experts who came to be part of this fun community event, and do their small part to help save the planet.
That, in part, is what Repair Cafes are all about. And it’s why the Repair Cafe movement has spread around the world, with a number in the Hudson Valley, and now in Croton. Credit for bringing it to our village rests largely with CCAC chair Janet Monahan and former trustee Sherry Horowitz, with important technical and publicity help from Emily Mancini, an assistant to the village manager.
And according to at least one experienced expert, Croton did a very good job in its first attempt. Suzie Fromer, who came to repair jewelry at the event and is also the Repair Cafe Coordinator for Sustainable Hudson Valley, gave us a thumbs up:
“It’s always so exciting to be at a town’s first cafe; they worked really hard behind the scenes to put on a fantastic event and they should be proud of all their efforts,” she told the Chronicle. “Everyone I spoke to was so happy to have a local repair cafe and were really impressed by what the fixers were able to fix for them.”
Suzie also had a lot to say about why Repair Cafes are important and what their purposes are. Let’s quote her in full on that:
“Repair Cafes are, of course, about saving things from the landfill, but our mission is also so much more than that. We’re also very interested in preserving and passing on skills from one generation to the next and we’re very interested in building community. Now that the pandemic is ‘over,’ there’s a lot of talk about the loneliness epidemic, but not a lot of solutions. Activities like Repair Cafes are one way to combat that loneliness. We’re creating those elusive ’third spaces’ (outside of home and work) that are so lacking nowadays for communities to come together. It’s really been incredible for me in my year as the coordinator for Repair Cafe Hudson Valley to not only see only how we serve so many communities but also how we as a community of repairers and volunteers have grown. It’s a great movement to get involved in as a volunteer—even if you’re not ‘handy’ there are still many roles to play.”
Croton’s next Repair Cafe will be in June. But if you can’t wait that long, there will be others not too far away in time and location. To find out where, check out the handy calendar on the Repair Cafe Hudson Valley Website.
Importantly, don’t give up on that old item that does not seem to be working. There may be life in it yet! And as a number of people were heard to say at Croton’s Repair Cafe, “They just don’t make them like they used to.”