looking for volunteers for Greenburgh's first REPAIR CAFE

First Greenburgh Repair Café Coming in May—looking for volunteers to help with repairs

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The Fairview Empowerment Group, the Theodore D. Young Community Center (TDYCC), Repair Café Hudson Valley (RCHV) and the Rivertowns Repair Café are pleased to announce the first Greenburgh Repair Café will be held on Saturday May 18th from 10:00am – 2:00pm at the TDYCC located at 32 Manhattan Ave, White Plains, NY 10607. This event is free and open to the public.? I attended a Repair Café in Irvington last year. It was an amazing experience –lots of volunteers donating their time helping their neighbors with repairs. A fantastic community initiative.

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Repair Cafes are local run, pop-up events that promote repair as an alternative to throwing things out. Volunteer repair coaches are generally able to fix around 80% of the items brought into a cafe. The most common repairs are lamps, vacuums and small appliances but other typical repairs include mechanical, textiles, jewelry, bikes, woodworking, and computers. Repair cafes are also important community building events. RCHV coordinator, jewelry repair coach and Greenburgh resident Suzie Fromer describes the mood at a cafe; “Everyone is so happy to be there. It’s sort of beautiful to put on an event where neighbor is helping neighbor for the sheer joy of it. But we’re also doing something more—we’re creating a culture shift. Together, we are transforming our throwaway society into one that buys less and recycles, reuses and?repairs more.”

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Repairs are free but donations are welcome to help cover the costs of café supplies and food for the many volunteers who are donating their time and talents to the cafe. Repairs are first come, first served and true to the café name there will have fresh coffee, tea and snacks for the guests while they wait. Repair cafes are not drop off services—café guests sit with the fixers during their repairs so they can learn as well as assist the repair coach with information or sometimes literally lend a hand. Café guests will leave with either a useable item, the information they needed to fix it at home or at least the satisfaction that they gave it their best effort.

The first Repair Café was held in October 2009 in Amsterdam by environmental journalist Martine Postma. Since then, the repair café concept has grown into an international movement that is celebrating its 15th anniversary in 2024. Repair Cafes were brought to the Hudson Valley in 2013 by the late John Wackman, a local environmentalist and community organizer. With the help of Sustainable Hudson Valley, he built a vibrant network that has grown to almost 60 independently operated repair cafes throughout the Hudson Valley, Catskills and Capital Region. Last year, Repair Café Hudson Valley held 124 repair cafes and was featured on NBC’s Today Show.

Contact GreenburghRepairCafe@gmail.com or (646) 785-6297 for more info or photos.?

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For more info on the Greenburgh Café and to sign up to help, visit www.feginc.org/greenburgh-repair-cafe-1

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For news, info and other repair cafes in the RCHV network, visit www.repaircafehv.org/

For info on Sustainable?Hudson Valley visit www.sustainhv.org/

For more info on the Repair Café International visit www.repaircafe.org/en/?

For more info on the Rivertowns Repair Café visit www.facebook.com/hastingsrepaircafe

For more info on the Fairview Empowerment Group visit www.feginc.org/

For more info on the Theodore D. Young Community center visit tdycc.org/

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PAUL FEINER Greenburgh Town Supervisor