A monthly Repair Cafe is launching on Saturday 25th September, following a successful trial run in late July.
Hosted in the Quay Arts conference room off the main cafe, the Repair Cafe will offer people the chance to bring broken items for repair that might otherwise end up on the scrap heap.
As part of the Repair Cafe ethos customers will have the chance to learn how to do their own repairs – and even get involved in the repair itself!
Fern Presant told News OnTheWight,
“We want people to come along, learn … and help us learn.”
New textile repairers
This month the Repair Cafe has a number of new textile repairers – so if you have an item of clothing that needs a quick mend and you want to learn how to do this – book one of the extra textile repair slots!
The brainchild of Fern
The impetus for the Repair Cafe project came from West Wight resident Fern Presant who sought the help of Planet Aware to get the project up and running.
A meeting in Newport 18 months ago was full with people keen to be involved, but unfortunately the project had to be halted because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Committed volunteers
Nevertheless, a committed band of volunteers from across the Island met regularly on Zoom to keep the project alive and finally launched a trial run in late July.
With the help of a small team of repairers nine items were repaired, enabling them to stay in use for longer.
Fern said,
“This is such a wonderful project, not only is it great to see things repaired, it is an opportunity for people to learn new skills and connect with others in the local community.”
Book your slot
Now the Repair Cafe is opening its doors to the public and will run monthly until at least the end of 2021 at Quay Arts.
Repair slots for the next Repair Cafe on September 25th can be booked online via Event Brite.
Find out more
To keep in touch with the Repair Cafe, ask about volunteering or if you want to start a Repair Cafe locally, please sign up to the Repair Cafe Isle of Wight mailing list.
Repair Cafe Isle of Wight is supported by Sovereign Housing and Planet Aware. For more information about Repair Cafes and about Repair Cafe Isle of Wight visit the Website.
News shared by Anne on behalf of Isle of Wight Repair Cafe. Ed
