WEST SACRAMENTO (MPG) - West Sacramento is getting ready to host the kickoff of a local repair café. What is a repair café? Well. Most people have a favorite piece of clothing that has something wrong like a broken zipper, or the seam ripped. They don’t know how to fix it, but they can’t bring themselves to throw it away. Or maybe your child or grandchild has a bicycle with a flat tire or the chain is off and you just haven’t had time (or perhaps don’t know how) to show them how to fix it.

Many people have a speaker that doesn’t work or a coffee maker that leaks, or something that needs some TLC but you don’t know how to fix it. These things often end up at the dump, just because we don’t know how to fix them. A repair café is exactly where you can go to learn how to fix things. Turner Library, located at 1212 Merkley Avenue, will be the place for that to happen. Saturday, June 24^th from 9am – 12 noon, will be the day of the first West Sacramento Repair Café.

The first repair café will include how to work on a bicycle, and how to sew. Now this is not a place where you drop off your things to be repaired. This will be where you can come learn how to do it for yourself. All ages are welcome, however, children under the age of 12 should be accompanied by an adult. The workshops are free and will be taught and guided by an expert in that field.

The bike repair will be taught by skilled bicycle mechanics from Sacramento Area Bike Advocates (SABA). Just bring your bike in need of repair and you will learn how to fix it.

Clothing repair will be taught by skilled seamstresses and seamsters. This will not be a place to work on your sewing machine (that may come later), it will be a place to learn how to hem something, put in a zipper or button, or perhaps repair a hole in one of your pieces of clothing. You will also be able to learn how to make an old pair of jeans into a purse.

The Repair Café will take place on the last Saturday of each month. Ani Burst is the lady bringing this to West Sacramento. “It helps keep so much needless stuff out of the landfills, it saves people money, and it’s good family bonding time,” said Ani. She believes that the possibilities are endless in what can be taught at the café. Ani said that she would eventually like to take requests or suggestions of what people need help with. Some topics discussed were: electronic repair, bike repair, small appliance repair, furniture repair/upholster, keeping house plants alive, gardening, how to fix a watch/clock, how to replace something on your computer, cooking, and much, much more.

Ani explained that they would eventually like to have a place where people can comment on groups, request a topic, volunteer to teach, or just mingle with others. It’ll be a good way for you to get to know your community a little bit better as well. In addition, since the schools no longer have wood shop classes and home economics, this will be a great place for kids to learn some basic skills.

Repair Café will take place on the last Saturday of each month. Check with the library or look in future issues of the News Ledger for details on upcoming Repair Café’ workshops. For more information, you can also visit bit.ly/therepaircafe.