RepairED: Repair Café at Hopper Home

Published 22 June 2022

RepairED: Repair Café at Hopper Home

Hopper Home and Sustainability Trust’s first collaborative repair café was kicked off on Saturday 14th May, thanks to funding from Wellington City Council’s Waste Minimisation Fund.

What is a repair café?

A Repair Café is a place to be social and to learn while your much-loved item is being repaired. Ideally you will have a hand in your repair under the supervision of an expert volunteer. This may look like opening a small electric appliance, learning to wire a new plug, soldering circuits or mending clothes by hand or machine.

There are no guarantees your item will or can be fully repaired because many items we buy have been built with no ability to be repaired – they are designed so we must keep buying new things (toasters are a great example.) If the item is difficult or impossible to repair, a repair café is geared up to inform you of where the item can be repaired locally by a specialist, or you’ll be given advice on your right to repair and what to look out for in your next purchase.

The first of four Hopper Repair Cafés this year:

It was so exciting to see people from Te Whanganui-a-Tara embracing the idea of repair rather than dispose in May! Over the three repair hours, 37 items were brought into Hopper Repair Café for repair. Toasters, lamps, heaters, radios, speakers, clothing and even an old suitcase. 20 items were fully repaired, advice was provided to nine people and the remaining eight unrepairable items went to Sustainability Trust’s E-waste to be recycled.

Here’s what a few attendees had to say about the day:

“Sam showed me why the heater couldn't be fixed, because it had been designed not to be openable. I will be checking this before buying a new one. “

“Amazing to get our toaster fixed. I tried to get it repaired at a shop and they said that they couldn’t do it.”

“It was a really nice event. I got my wood chopped up and had a quick repair on my hoodie.”

“Was good to find out what a capacitor is! And to see the complexity of what seems like a basic appliance.“

Many thanks to our volunteers:

The success of Hopper Repair Café is thanks to our 12 volunteers – without these wonderful people who give over their time to support the repair movement, whatever their motivation, our repair café would not be possible. We value our vollies and therefore all koha you give on the day, and all proceeds from our repair bookings go back to celebrating our community of repair volunteers.

Book now