Cville TimeBank

Tag: fixing

  • Fixin’ to change the throw-away mentality

    “I’m SO happy I don’t have to take this to the dump!”

    Our very first Cville Repair Café was a sweet success. More than 80 visitors brought their stuff to be evaluated and repaired by our team of volunteer fixers on November 15, 2015. We saved vacuum after vacuum, old lamps, piles of costume jewelry, entire bags of mending, and lots more – including a couple of nearly-new appliances that had their cords chewed off by a new puppy.

    Watch the highlights in 60 seconds:

    Our check-out team reported that visitors were “glowing” as they left, and our fixers had at least as much fun as the fixees. But don’t take our word for it. Check out the news coverage:

    WAHU Fox 27 – Repair Café Fixes Old Items for Free on Sunday
    NBC 29 – Charlottesville Service Exchange Organization Hosts First Repair Café
    The Daily Progress – Repair Café brings out community, keeps items out of landfill

    And here’s the best part: we’re doing it all AGAIN in the spring! Don’t miss our next event in March 2016: Click here to join the Repair Café mailing list.

    Until then, take a look at our new Cville Repair Directory to find local repair shops for appliances, electronics, phones & computers, sewing & alterations, bikes, and much more.

  • Repair Café Coming Soon? It’s Up to You…

    One of the beautiful things about the TimeBank is how it shows us the wealth of skills  “ordinary” people have to offer. This fall, we’re working on a new project that highlights one of those skill sets: fixing stuff.

    Cville Repair Café will bring a whole crew of handy fix-it types together for a huge community repair-o-rama! Folks bring in their broken stuff and actually get to watch & learn while volunteer fixers make repairs. Perfectly good stuff gets saved from landfill oblivion, and our fixers get some well-deserved love & appreciation for their special skills.

    Toss it? No way!
    Toss it? No way!

    Our plan is to hold two huge Repair Café events between October 2015 and March 2016. And from there…. who knows? Maybe it will become a community institution!

    It’s going to take quite a bit of work to pull together the whole community and fix a TON of stuff. Our Kitchen Cabinet, in their wisdom, realized that someone will need to pour dozens of hours into managing all the bits and pieces of this project.

    So, they applied for and WON a Neighborhood Challenge matching grant from the Center for a New American Dream! New Dream will match up to $2,000 to help pay the Repair Café coordinator a modest stipend, plus cover all the other expenses of hosting these community-wide events.

    Now, here’s the thing…. a MATCHING grant means that we need to raise $$ in order to get the grant funds. So we’re running a crowdfunding campaign over at ioby.org, and we really hope you’ll pitch in $10 or $20 (or more) to help us create an amazing Repair Café!

    Our project coordinator is already hard at work with a volunteer planning team, and we’ll announce the date & location of the first Repair Café soon. We’ll be recruiting fixers, too, so keep an eye out for that request!

    Please help us earn the matching funds and put on an awesome Repair Café: donate now at www.ioby.org/project/cville-repair-cafe

    PS – Don’t wait! The Neighborhood Challenge fundraiser ends August 31. #fixallthethings