Whittlesea residents are invited to celebrate the first anniversary of the Mernda Repair Cafe by bringing down their broken items to receive a new lease of life.
The Repair Cafe will celebrate its one year anniversary on Saturday April 22, in the only way it knows how, with skilled volunteers performing repairs on all kinds of personal items that would otherwise be thrown out.
Open from 10am-12pm at the Mernda Community House, the Cafe will have a dedicated team of volunteers at the ready including, shoe, bike, garment and electrical repairs, as well as an IT wizard for updates on your phone and computer.
Maylei Hunt is the program coordinator for the Repair Cafe, she says that the initiative takes into consideration both caring for the environment as well as peoples hip-pocket.
“The focus is about sustainability and the environment and really bringing back skills of repair back to the community,” she said.
“People also save money by having their items repaired instead of buying new things.”
Ms Hunt says that by repairing items they are able to divert waste from landfill, with close to 100kg of potential landfill saved at each event.
“The response from the community has been fantastic, not just people bringing in items, but even our own repair team has grown, it’s pretty much doubled,” she said.
“We hope more people get excited and come to our events.”
Repair bookings range from 30-60 minutes depending on the repair and the volunteer will assess if an item is repairable within the allocated time.
Details: merndach.org.au/repaircafe
Hannah Hammoud
