Running My First Repair Café
My community has wanted to run a repair cafe for years, and I decided this year that I wanted to make it happen. Here’s how everything went, and things I’m excited to do next time ♥
Technocopia staff and volunteers helping to repair a tower fan for a guest at our Repair Cafe. Photo Credit to Matthew J. Burgos
Introduction
This year has continued to be an emotional roller coaster. I’ve been trying to continue surviving as a disabled trans person in the U.S., trying to earn sustainable income so I don’t have to rely on my family as much, and trying to make a difference in my community.
It’s been a lot to juggle, but something Riley and I have been real fixated on has been this concept of a quarterly repair cafe at Technocopia. It has been such a tantalizing thought for our organization for a number of years, but as always, the enemy has been capacity
As a new board member at Technocopia, I wanted to do something to make a difference, and decided to take on the effort needed to actually make it happen.
We started by hosting a private repair cafe for Technocopia members. That event ran pretty well, the main problems with that event is that we had too many repair volunteers, and not enough belongings to be repaired. It certainly gave an early indication that we’d be able to handle more folks the next time around!
Technocopia repair volunteers helping mend a pair of jeans, and repairing a textile good at Technocopia’s first private repair cafe. Photo Credit to Ariel Amasifuén
Why Are We So Fixated On Repair Cafes?
Something foundational to my praxis is mutual aid and community care. Which of my neighbors are in vulnerable populations, and what can I do to help make life a little easier? How can I contribute when I’m bed bound for such a large percentage of life? What am I doing to make sure that I’m reducing potential harm I could cause? Am I consistently looking for and listening to voices from said populations talking about their experiences?
While a repair cafe is not as directly supportive as providing social services, it still teaches something important to everyone who engages: We don’t have to always be at the whims of major corporations weaponizing planned obsolescence to force us to buy from them over and over again. There are more and more conversations talking about the right to repair, and how the history of planned obsolescence began. You’ll see it often enough in your day to day life. Many of us remember the age of 2000-2010 phones that all had a removable back to access your battery and repairable parts, whereas today, you rarely see phones that you can access the inside of, much less being able to easily repair those phones yourself.
Close-up of Technocopia staff member Eric working on assessing the electrical components of a tower fan, while our guest examines other components. Fans like these are not well designed for repair, and it is often a battle to help them come back to life. Photo Credit to Matthew J. Burgos
The Global E-Waste Monitor reports that “In 2022, a record 62 billion kg of e-waste was generated globally (equivalent to an average of 7.8 kg per capita per year); 22.3 per cent of this e-waste mass was documented as formally collected and recycled in an environmentally sound manner.” When you put into perspective that many e-waste items include conflict minerals, extracted and processed through abusive human rights violations, it becomes imperative to try your best to repair your belongings, and not buying new technology as often as possible to reduce the demand for more new electronic devices being created.
Beyond the imperative for solidarity, repair gives us joy. The ability to retain belongings that have become precious, or being able to customize textiles to become more of a reflection on you are wonderful experiences that come with repair. Many times, when I’m engaging with someone who has just fixed something, there’s this light of excitement in folks’ eyes when they realize that with a bit of work and support, you have the control to bring something back to life. It’s wonderful when you realize that you saved something from the landfill, and this item will not be added to the 2 billion tonnes of waste generated each year across the globe.
Getting Ready For The Real Thing
With the hope that I could help my community a bit, it was time to move onto actually planning a public repair cafe. Eric and Riley from Technocopia were hugely supportive, and even applied for a grant to potentially get support for future repair cafes!
After that, I started up a sign up sheet for volunteers, messaged all of our membership to call on folks, and started prepping marketing materials
Because we were signed up for multiple events in June, I decided that I wanted to time our repair cafe to happen the weekend after The Thicket’s annual Thicknic, a plus-sized focused clothing swap, and the pride market hosted by Cold Moon Arts at Vincent’s. We spent the day handing out copies of this flyer I made, and were very successful in distributing almost all of our flyers at both the events!
Ariel chats with a guest at Cold Moon Arts’ Pride Market about Technocopia’s upcoming repair cafe, and Technocopia’s offerings to the community. Photo Credit to Riley Pettit
We were also able to run Technocopia’s most popular social media post to date, with 24K views, and almost 330 interactions. All of which resulted in the Telegram & Gazette reaching out to include us in an article about an organization creating a directory of places to repair your belongings. I’m very happy with how all that worked out, and I was actually feeling good about the repair cafe going into the final week leading up to the event.
The main problem that happened is that our robotics club, who I had been banking on for support with electronics repairs, were not available for the day of. As the time wound closer and closer, I realized we would probably be in need of more people to work on appliances, as the Repair Cafe Foundation mentions in their manual that the most common belongings to bring in are electronics and appliances.
There was some mild panic leading up to the day because of this, as the only people who were volunteering that had electronics experience did not do electronics work as their primary focus. But regardless, we had a day to run, and after the panic dissipated, I snapped into “taking care of everybody” mode.
Running The Repair Cafe Proper
Overall, I’d say that the event was a huge success! Despite the onslaught of engagement we got online, we were able to keep the 3 hours manageable with around 30 folks coming in, with around 12 volunteers to make repairs.
We did a lot of good work with signage for the day of. A giant plywood sign for parking, signs to help lead potentially lost folks to the right door, and a sandwich board with balloons outside to signal the correct door.
Technocopia parking signage, with The Printers Building in the background. Technocopia’s on the 6th floor! Photo Credit to Ariel Amasifuén
We had a member who stayed on the desk the entire time and I’m so grateful! They helped with buzzing folks in, and helping point folks to the right area for repairs. One thing I would do next time is have someone dedicatedly assessing the belongings of folks, and deciding which volunteer to assign them with. This ended up partially being me, but only because I was running around enough that I could catch people when they looked lost. I would grab their attention and ask to look at their belonging, and then taking a look around at who to assign them to, and usually letting them know that they would need to wait a bit for the next person to be available.
Technocopia staff member Riley helps repair a toaster at Technocopia’s repair cafe. This repair was swell because there were tutorials online and Riley was able to explain how the repair works to our guests, and give them a couple of times to do the repair themselves! Photo Credit to Matthew J. Burgos
Overall, we usually had 1-3 people waiting for their turn, but I checked in with them frequently, and emphasized that we had an air conditioned kitchen with pizza, ice cream, and cold drinks. People were usually pretty okay with waiting, especially with me checking in on them regularly.
We definitely saw the percentages of categories matching what the repair cafe manual said, and overall I think that if we had a couple more of our robotics folks, we’ll probably be very well set for future repair cafes! We had multiple textile projects, 2 bikes brought in, and a lot of appliances including fans, lamps, a toaster, a coffee maker, and more! We also had a number of folks getting their knives sharpened, and someone also got their sewing machine repaired, and spent the rest of the repair cafe sewing up whatever they wanted.
A Technocopia guest researches the manual for this sewing machine model while our Textiles Steward works on the repair. Photo Credit to Ariel Amasifuén.
I really enjoyed that a number of our members did an amazing job not only repairing for our guests, but many of them also gabbing with folks, making friends, and giving some information about the repairs so they had context, and could learn about what goes into fixing their belongings.
Things To Improve Next Time
For our next repair cafe, I’ll be trying to do more marketing through our neighborhood’s organizations, getting a few more volunteers to help with assessments and giving tours, and of course, not scheduling the cafe on a robotic club member’s birthday.
I would also really love to create pamphlets about the right to repair, or maybe a zine to help folks get started in thinking about waste, and doing more to buy less, all while possibly making your belongings more durable and custom to the individual.
Textiles repair by a repair volunteer. Photo Credit to Ariel Amasifuén.
I would also prioritize ensuring that we had another volunteer to help with running around to see if anyone needed something. I was the person responsible for that this event, and there was no one else who could help. This caused me to be running around on foot for the whole event, since I was scared of damaging my wheelchair or someone else with how fast I needed to move around. I needed about 6 days of recovery from how much I pushed, including not being able to stay awake for more than a few hours in the days after the event, pretty extreme joint pain, and a skin flare-up with maddening pain levels.
I’m writing this at the end of my recovery period, and while I’m so grateful that we were able to provide a mutual aid service for our community, I’m sad that it could only happen by hurting me for almost a week. I’m still looking for ways to exist safely, and still provide service to our neighbors.
Thank you so so much to our Technocopia staff members Eric & Riley, to our volunteers who helped so many community members repair their belongings, and our community for coming to engage with us and learn about the space! I hope we’re able to continue momentum for the next cafe, and continue to make the experience as welcoming and supportive as possible.
