SWAMPSCOTT — The Solid Waste Advisory Committee will be sponsoring its first ever “Repair Cafe” event, free of charge to the community, where residents can bring some of their favorite household items, clothes or small technological devices to be repaired by volunteers ready to help.
Community members are encouraged to head over to the Senior Center — located on 200R Essex Street — on Oct. 25 from 9 a.m. to noon. The event will also be a “great community building effort,” according to Committee Chair Wayne Spritz.
In order to assist the community, the committee is actively searching for subject-expert volunteers to assist their time and expertise.
Some of the different areas of repairs that community members can expect will include sewing and jewelry repairs, furniture and ceramics, as well as computers and repairs for small electronic devices.
Committee member Alix Smullin connected with The Item where she described how the endeavor came to life.
“This was not an invention of ours. There’s two well-known formats for this type of event: one is a repair cafe, the other is a fix-it clinic, but there were aspects of the repair cafe that we really liked, so that is the model that we’re using (for this event),” Smullin said.
She continued, where she explained how she and Spritz saw the event in surrounding communities and thought it would be a great idea to bring it to Swampscott.
“One of the first priorities for our committee is to offer an opportunity for the community to bring things that can be repaired fairly easily, and continue to be used as opposed to being thrown away,” she said.
She also noted one of the other goals was to generate the thought of repairing household items rather than tossing them away in the minds of community members.
For those who are interested in signing up, they can fill out an online form using this link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSefQzXKMywVzfkoSOy3mJB6PWOlQQOvl06sYc9lZ5dd2DRXAQ/viewform?pli=1
Potential volunteers can also email [email protected] to inquire about signing up for the event.
