Many people adjust to the normalcy of broken things — toasters, jewelry, clothing. Repair Café RVA reminds folks, you don’t have to throw the faulty out. You don’t have to purchase anew. We’ve got you.
Richmond’s Repair Café chapter opened around one year ago as part of a worldwide movement to promote sustainability. To help celebrate and reflect on the anniversary, we chatted with founder Jenny Kobayashi Malone.
Editor’s Note: Responses have been edited for brevity and clarity.
How has Repair Café RVA become a learning environment for the community?
A huge part of the Repair Café model is completing and learning the repair skills together. Not only do our volunteers get to constantly learn... [but] the folks who bring in their broken items are usually really eager to watch the repair happen or get involved.
For example, someone will come in with holes in their shirt elbows; the volunteer will show them how to patch one elbow, then send the person home with a patch for the other elbow and a needle and thread.
It’s one thing to have a shirt you can wear again, but learning how to do it yourself so the next time it wears through the elbows you’ll know what to do is — it’s kind of magical.
What have been some of the bigger repair projects you’ve tackled this past year?
We’ve had quite a few bikes, and we’ve had good success with electrical tools, like an electric lawnmower and an electric chainsaw. I think some of our heaviest items that we repair are sewing machines. We’ve been able to repair or maintenance a lot of sewing machines in the past year.
Editor’s Note: Kobayashi Malone mentioned a few more milestone repairs during our chat — stayed tuned for a potential upcoming feature highlighting them.
Do you think Repair Café would ever get to the level of fixing cars?
I feel like we’ve made a solid step in that direction. I’ve had mechanics approach me saying they want to help repair cars, but as I’m digging into it, it feels a bit more complicated — figuring out the logistics to make sure everyone stays really safe. Feels a bit more complicated than fixing a toaster or a sweatshirt.
I don’t know that it will happen in this year because it’s also about finding the right space to be able to do those repairs... We have focused our efforts on indoor events thus far.
What can people look forward to in the coming year?
I think doing more of the same will feel like an accomplishment. It’s just been so rewarding, and there are still so many people in the city who don’t know about us yet. In that same vein, I definitely want to be a resource for bike repair. I see that as such a great way to shrink our carbon footprint in getting around the city.
I’m also looking forward to April, [when] we’ll be collaborating with some other organizations to do a larger-scale repair café in addition to a giant free flea market, essentially.
How can people get involved?
We’re always open to accepting more volunteers. We’re looking for both breadth and depth — volunteers with similar skills to our current volunteers and volunteers with different skills as well.
I also would love for your readers to know that we need volunteers in non-repair capacities as well. It takes a lot of folks to run this event — greeters, people who help collect the data, runners who help visitors get from one point to the next, people who help with our clothing swap, people who help with refreshments.
We’re also so open to people coming to learn repair skills, too. I’ve had a number of people reach out saying, ‘Hey, I really want to learn how to repair appliances, for example. Can I come by and just observe and watch and learn?’ And I always say yes.
Editor’s Note: Kobayashi Malone added that Repair Café RVA highly encourages people to wear masks when attending events. Find contact information, repair requests, and volunteer directories on the organization’s Instagram or Facebook.
