Pleasant Valley welcomes our first Repair Café

The sun was shining once again in Pleasant Valley on Saturday June 4th, this time over the inaugural Repair Café held at Town Hall on Main Street.

Repair Café is a local meeting place that brings together people with broken items and pairs them with repair coaches, also known as fixers, who have the expertise to make them work again.

The Repair Cafe idea was born in Amsterdam in 2009 and was brought to the Hudson Valley in New Paltz by volunteer organizer John Wackman in 2013. His dedication enthusiasm and success inspired others to launch Repair Cafe events in their local communities.

The mission of a Repair Café is to transform our throw-away economy one beloved item at a time.  Reduce how much “stuff” goes into the waste stream, and to preserve traditional repair know-how and skills and pass them on to others.  It is important to let the people who have this repair knowledge that they are valued.  Repair Café’s feed our curiosity about "the way things work" while having fun and creating community sustainability and resilience, www.repaircafehv.org

Pleasant Valley’s event was organized by local resident Jean Curlee. Jean was driven by the idea that, "If you repair a lamp, a CD player or a pair of trousers together with a previously unfamiliar neighbor, you look at that person in a different way the next time you run into them at the store.  Jointly making repairs can lead to pleasant contacts in the neighborhood and sharing the repair knowledge." On Saturday she achieved just that.

The Repair Café brought together 13 fixers and over 30 broken treasures. Not bad for a first effort.

At 10 AM the registration table was set up outside the town hall doors and those in need of a repair were greeted by a friendly welcome from volunteers. Here the volunteers gathered information and directed visitors to the correct fixers.

Those in need of having their mower blades sharpened and balanced, garden tools, scissors, knives and even axes sharpened, or an old but beloved metal watering can needing mending, were directed to the fixers outside, Vince from Hopewell, Dave all the way from Schenectady and Bill, a local resident. If you needed a bicycle repair, you were also directed outside to Alexander, from Schenectady.

 The lamps, toasters, mixers, vacuums, laptop, VCR, sound bar, fans and even a ceramic statue and a vintage umbrella were directed inside to fixers Milo, Chris, Fred, Dan, Tim, Frank, and Dave. Visitors came from near and far and yes, even the ceramic statue and vintage umbrella that needed some TLC, were given new life by fixers who can do more than just electronics.

Meanwhile a coat that needed a torn lining hand sewn, crochet bag that required some mending and a zipper that needed fixing were sent to local fixers Darlene and Barbara.

Standing in the big room and looking at the fixers busily tinkering, chatting about the treasurers with their owners, asking each other for spare parts and advice, truly brought home the idea of community and sustainability.

Standing back outside happy faces were seen leaving the town hall with their fixed treasures as they stopped to grab a coffee and treat from the café all the while making small talk and sharing their Repair Café experience.

As 2 PM rolled around organizer Jean Curlee reflected on the day, “Above all, Repair Café just wants to show how much fun repairing things can be, and how easy it often is.”

 In case you missed Saturday’s event and need a repair have no fear. The next Repair Café is scheduled for Saturday August 6th and every other month on the first Saturday; October 1st and December 3rd.

 Jean and all the volunteers hope to see you there.