Get Your Fix On at Repair Café in Ignacio

Let’s imagine spending 100 bucks on a smoothie maker a few months ago, and then just like that, the button stopped working. Or great-aunt Penny’s fair winning quilts are sadly discovered ruined, puddled with a collection of disgusting moth-worn holes. Toss or fix? The answer is at your local Repair Cafe. You’re watching the Local NEWS Network, brought to you by The Payroll Department and Serious Texas Bar-B-Q. I’m Connor Shreve. An international organization, Repair Cafe, has recently opened shop at Ignacio Community Library to help folks fix everything, from zippers and electronics, to toasters and bicycles for free. Tools and materials are on hand, along with a variety of expert volunteers doing the fixing and teaching.

Well, we’ve recruited, and are still recruiting, a number of different what we calling our repairers, and we have people who are versed in bicycle repair. We have a seamstress who does alterations who’s going to come. We have someone who does furniture repair. I do a number of different types of repair. I’ve had a shop since I was in seventh grade. And then we have a couple of guys who are really good with computers and one electronics expert.

The Repair Cafe concept is born out of the right to repair movement. Laws that fight for the right to freely modify and repair such products as digital farm equipment without formal training.

It helps you take ownership of the device that you actually have. A lot of people own a device, but they know nothing about other than how to operate it. They know nothing about how to fix it, and so when something goes wrong, they’re at a loss. And oftentimes, simple repair could get that item working again, but it ends up then being tossed and go to the landfill.

Of course, not everything is fixable.

If someone brings us an electronic device that can’t be repaired and they have no longer a use for it, they can leave it with us and we’ll go ahead. We’ll strip it down and we will recycle the valuable metals in those electronics. And we will not only prevent things from going in the landfill, but just raise awareness and keep people from tossing things, and maybe figuring out how they can recycle them, recondition them, reuse them before they trash them.

The Repair Cafe will be held the first Thursday each month at the Ignacio Public Library. People who just want to observe and learn are encouraged to come, as that’s part of the Cafe experience. The first Repair Cafe took place in Amsterdam in 2009. Since then, the concept has grown to over 1,400 events in more than 30 countries. To learn more about this and other stories, go to durangolocal.news. Thank you for watching this edition of the Local NEWS Network. I’m Connor Shreve.