Inaugural Repair Cafe Frontenac scheduled for May 26

Craig Bakay | Apr 24, 2019

Repair Cafe Frontenac is organized and plans initial cafe for Sunday, May 26 from 2-4:40pm at St. James Major Catholic Church in Sharbot Lake.

Subsequent cafes are planned for June 23 at the Bellrock Community Hall and July 28 at Perth Road United Church.

One of the organizers, Peter de Bassecourt, said: “we’ll be putting out the call for volunteers shortly.”

He said they’ll always be looking for fixers but also welcomers and guides, who will greet visitors and direct them to the proper table. They are also looking for someone to do some publicity and someone to maintain their new Facebook page www.facebook.com/RepairCafeFrontenac. If you’re interested, contact the organization via Facebook or the new email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

The Repair Cafe concept was begun in the Netherlands by Martine Postma in 2009. Currently, there are 1,822 Repair Cafes worldwide.

“Repair Cafes are essentially free meeting places and they’re all about repairing things together,” the parent website (repaircafe.org) says. “Visitors bring broken items from home (and) together with the experts, they start making repairs in the cafe.

“It’s an ongoing learning process.

“If you have nothing to repair, you can enjoy a cup of tea or coffee or lend a hand with someone else’s repair job.”

Example items to be repaired include clothing, furniture, electrical appliances, bicycles, crockery, toys. The cafe doesn’t stock a lot of spare parts but volunteers can usually assist in finding out what part is needed and how to go about getting one. Anything you can manage to get there on your own has a good chance of getting properly repaired. If you want to find out if someone will be available to help you mend your broken item, contact them via Facebook or email.

There is no charge but there is a tip jar or piggybank for donations to cover costs.

Repair Cafes do not take donations of broken items. Tools and/or repair products (such as glue) are sometimes accepted.