Saturday, September 26, 2020, the Town of Bedford welcomes its first Repair Café in the Bedford Hills train station from 10am-12pm. The launching will be part of the Climate Week activities organized by Bedford2030.
Bedford 2030 aspires to make the Cafe a regular event in the future, alongside the Take It Or Leave It Shed. Both are ongoing volunteer efforts to curb our waste and to keep our old and/or broken things from being disposed of.
There are over 1.500 Repair Cafés worldwide and all are set up to be free meeting places where visitors bring their broken items and can, together with specialists, make repairs.
If you have nothing to repair, you can enjoy a cup of tea or coffee or you can lend a hand with someone else’s repair job.
Repair work has become scarce. With today’s production process it is often cheaper to buy new, and only few companies encourage repairs on their products, or have the parts for them.
Repair Cafes are a component in a greater movement, which also includes The Right to Repair, which promotes manufacturers to provide the necessary documents and information to allow anyone to repair their products, and iFixit, an online site that teaches people how to fix almost anything.
Although the repairs at the Repair Cafe are done for free, professional carpenters, computer specialists and seamstresses are encouraged to join the Repair Cafe and hand out their business cards. Donations for materials used by the volunteer repairers are also welcome at the Cafe.