Repair Cafe brings together neighbors with broken items and the experts to fix them

Royersford, Pennsylvania -- Repairs by experts who are your neighbors. A few times a year, the Royersford Baptist Church plays host to a community event where people bring in their broken household items and let their neighbors try to fix them. The fixers are local experts in their fields. Many of the repair stations include dolls, music instruments, woodwork, furniture, bikes, knife sharpening and electronics such as lamps and vacuum cleaners.

"We have a really special church here and the people want to help and give. And I've never had trouble getting volunteers," says Kay RolfsMassaglia, who founded the repair cafe here after getting a brainstorm.

"I was at an environmental event, and I saw somebody with a lapel that said, 'Repair Cafe'. I go, what is that? I explored it and thought we could do that!"

Repair cafes began in the Netherlands in 2009 by a Dutch journalist by the name of Martine Postma. She was interested in sustainability and reuse. The idea quickly spread. And now, there are thousands operating around the globe, including right here in Royersford, PA.

Kay says, "I have my Grandma bakers' mentality. She's born in 1890. She threw nothing away! She turned her clothes into rugs. "

Janet Ottey from Pottstown, PA came in with a faulty vacuum cleaner plug. "It's extremely important to a family budget. Also, it feels good to be keeping things out of landfills as long as possible because the resources aren't infinite."

It's a great example of fellowship, neighbors helping neighbors and a way to combat throw-away culture, keeping items from the landfill.

As this repair cafe grows, one idea they had was a repair station on broken relationships!

Kay says, "In the eyes of God, a repaired object is more holy than a new one." She hopes that as they expand with more stations and more experts, the community continues to come together.

There's an inspirational quote on every table, too. One of them says "repair and reuse are the highest form of recycling."

For more information please visit https://www.rofobaptist.org.