A place to meet, and fix the things we need: The Shelter Island ‘Repair Cafe’ is seeking volunteers

The Repair Café program, first introduced on the Island at a 2022 Board of Education meeting, is alive and thriving, and the organizer, Kyle Karen, Ph.D., a professor at the New York Institute of Technology, wants help to expand it.

The program, begun in Amsterdam, wasn’t new to communities around the world, but no one had picked up on the idea on Shelter Island, a community Ms. Karen believes is a natural place for it to take hold.

According to the Repair Café website: “Repair Cafés are meeting places and they’re all about repairing things (together) … You’ll find tools and materials to help you make any repairs you need. On clothes, furniture, electrical appliances, bicycles, crockery, appliances, toys, et cetera. You’ll also find expert volunteers, with repair skills in all kinds of fields.”

Ms. Karen began enlisting people with a wide array of talents to repair items owners could reclaim or pass on to others who want to give them a renewed life. It’s not necessarily a free service, she said. If parts are needed to repair an item, it would be the owner’s responsibility to purchase them, she said.

She’s not alone in establishing the program. She credits the Shelter Island Educational Foundation for providing seed money to get the program underway. The staff at the library and Shelter Island School have also helped with Island residents coming aboard.

Superintendent Brian Doelger, Ed.D., and members of the Board of Education have embraced the program as a means of promoting life skills for Island students.

Three Stony Brook University graduate students Ms. Karen taught in classes – Kirby Schneider, Julie Hedger and Kyle Walker – in their final semester, helped launch the Shelter Island program. “Sadly for me – happily for them — I lost my helpers, but Long Island gained three new occupational therapists,” Ms. Karen said.

A session at the library in January generated help needed to carry the Repair Café program forward. To date, the program has had people repairing everything from electronics and lamps to bicycles and even clothing, Ms. Karen said.

Attendees said there’s a need for people who can repair furniture, run knife-sharpening workshops and provide administrative and logistical support and assistance about using social media safely.

There’s also a need for Spanish-speaking volunteers.

“Things seem to be changing back, as people are growing frustrated by the inability to repair things for themselves,” Ms. Karen said. “It’s not only a lack of skill that gets in the way. The producers of consumer products put up barriers deliberately making repair more difficult to maximize sales and profits.”  

John Deere and Apple have recognized consumers’ right to fix their products, and have removed barriers by providing information for consumers to make repairs. New York is  among the first states to enact right-to-repair legislation; the Digital Fair Repair Act went into effect on Dec. 28, 2023.

The law requires companies doing business in the state “to make the parts, tools and guides needed to successfully repair their devices readily available to everyone, including independent repair shops.” The law covers laptops, smartphones and tablets, but not home appliances, such as toasters and microwaves or medical equipment, Ms. Karen said.

Under the new guidelines, consumers are free to take their devices to a repair shop of their choosing, if they prefer to not use a manufacturers’ certified repair shop. More than 30 states have introduced right-to-repair legislation in the last three years, with laws passed in California, Colorado, Massachusetts, and Minnesota.

The Repair Café not only brings residents together for repair work, but affords an opportunity to learn new skills and teach others, Ms. Karen said. “I think it has a lot to offer as a community program,” she said. “We have a lot of skilled and talented people on Shelter Island and a strong tradition of community service. Some of that broke down during the pandemic and participating in the Repair Café is another way to strengthen social connections.”

In addition, it reduces waste that lands in the town Recycling Center. The Environmental Protection Agency found in 2018 that about 2.2 million tons of small appliance waste was generated from discarded toasters, hair dryers, coffee makers, and similar items each year. About 12 million tons of furniture, 15 million bicycles and 26.8 million stuffed and plastic toys are discarded by consumers.

“These numbers indicate the unbridled success of planned obsolescence policies on consumer behavior and their staggering impact on the planet,” Ms. Karen said. “More waste in landfills seeps into groundwater and causes major health adversities, more pollution, habitat destruction and, of particular interest to Islanders, danger to aquatic wildlife.

“We’re not turning our waste into fuel or anything new. We’re just letting it rot in landfills, creating greenhouse gas emissions, ruining the ozone layer and creating an unsustainable way of living.”