Repair Cafe, Palo Alto October Event

I got to spend last Sunday strolling the grounds of The Museum of American Heritage, helping volunteers find the right tool or part and riding my bike back and forth between the museum and our store in Palo Alto.This was all in service to the fabulous all-volunteer run Repair Cafe Palo Alto.

A few local Palo Alto residents were moved by our current rate of waste generation here in the US - we've nearly doubled the waste per capita since 1960, when each person produced about 2.68 pounds of waste per day. We now produce a whopping 4.65 pounds. Per person. Per day. In an effort to bring awareness, training and repair to their community, this group of friends founded the Repair Cafe Palo Alto.

Myself, one of the owners, and two of our employees have been supporting these events since their
inception, as the idea speaks to us on many levels: we like to tinker; we like to help; we're a certified green business and believe in fixing and reusing whenever possible; and I really like to ride my bike around on a nice day.

For more information on the Repair Cafe, visit their website, or join us for an upcoming event, either as a volunteer or someone who needs something fixed.

Our 2015 scheduled dates are as follows:

Feb 22

May 31

Aug 30

Oct 25

All events take place at The Museum of American Heritage:
351 Homer Avenue
Palo Alto, CA 94301

If you need a repair sooner, visit the Mt. View Repair Cafe on Nov 16.

-Jocelyn Lovelle

Repair Cafe, Palo Alto, Take Five

We (along with the Museum of American Heritage) sponsor this super cool event that happens once a quarter in Palo Alto, called Repair Cafe, where thirty-plus volunteers spend their Sunday helping fix things - most any manner of things, for anyone who shows up with something broken. We see a lot of small electrical appliances: microwaves, fans, lamps. We see lawnmowers and chain saws, bicycles and family heirloom pieces. We have jewelry repair, electrical and woodworking volunteers. It's a really fun time, especially if you're a tinkerer or the owner of something broken. Come on by and see for yourself!

Fourth Repair Cafe in Palo Alto a Success

Sunday, July 21, was the fourth Repair Cafe in Palo Alto and again, we had a great time.

Here is what the founder, Peter Skinner, reported on the event:

Thanks to all of you who participated in yesterday's Repair Cafe.  We had the usual eclectic collection of stuff come across the transom, including bikes, clothing, cameras, cell phones and computers, lawnmowers, luggage, lamps, toasters, cd players and microwaves.  We saw 3 broken sewing machines and a vintage film projector.  We even had a brush with a Silicon Valley legend [Dan Kottke...known as 'Apple employee number one']  – see my blog post here.



All told, 73 people brought in 114 items. We were able to fix 76 of them (67%)  and partially fix another 14 (12%).  The remaining items were deemed worthy of the recycling bin (provided by Greenwaste of Palo Alto) or carted away by their owners.  Not a bad fix rate!  There were many very happy people when they left.  Here's feedback from two satisfied visitors to the Repair Café:

Just wanted to weigh in to tell you how pleased we were to bring our “old”super 8 movie projector 

for repair and have so many volunteers show an interest in making this family relic work correctly. 

No less than six and more like seven or seven gentlemen had a look and tired MANY ideas to make 

the projector work as of old. At the end of the afternoon with Jim and Casey’s expertise, they 

got the it to almost work correctly. Movies can be seen and with a bit of “hands on” the movies 

can be seen without the flicker that plagued it before. It was a 

solution is to have at least some of the most precious family memories done by a professional unanimous  that the BEST 

and use the projector for family night entertainment. THANK YOU ONE AND ALL FOR YOUR HELP

 

Nick and Barbara Mardesich

Cupertino, CA