When we reminisce about “the good old days,” we might think of sitting on a front porch swing, sharing a cup of tea, easy conversation and laughter, and Yankee frugality. You might have lived by the old adage, “use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.” Many homes had a button jar full of old buttons cut from worn out shirts, ready to be used again.
Salem’s Repair Café hopes to combine the old time feeling of neighbor helping neighbor with the practicality and sustainability of the modern recycler’s mantra: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle—and now, Refresh, Refurbish, and Repair. It’s barn raising on a much smaller scale, with a modern twist of slowing down our consumer-based society, seeing what we might be able to patch up and appreciate anew. It’s choosing to glue a broken chair or rewire a beloved old lamp, minimizing our draw on the earth’s limited resources, and reducing as much as possible what enters our waste stream.
Salem residents are invited to participate in the North Shore’s very first Repair Café. Organized jointly by SalemRecycles and The Bridge at 211, this event takes place on Saturday, August 5, 2017, from 9:00 a.m. until noon, at The Bridge at 211. Repair volunteers will be available to mend clothing, sew buttons, repair jewelry, sharpen scissors and knives, tinker with or rewire electronics and lamps, glue wooden furniture, and repair or diagnose cameras. At 11:00 a.m., join a brief presentation on How to Maintain Gardening Tools For Winter Storage.
The Repair Café is free to the public (donations are accepted toward supplies for future repair events); a limited number of pre-registration slots are available; and light refreshments will be served. Limited parking is available in the small lot at 211 Bridge St., or park on nearby streets and walk on over.
For further information, please contact Julie Rose at jrose@salem.com or 978-619-5679. You may also follow SalemRecycles at GreenSalem.com or on Facebook to receive updates on this and other sustainable events. Learn more about The Bridge at 211 at thebridge211.org/.
SalemRecycles is the City’s volunteer recycling committee which works to increase recycling and encourage positive recycling practices through educational outreach and special events. The repair café is the committee’s latest initiative.