Shelter Island Reporter editorial: A gift that keeps giving

When Kyle Karen proposed starting a Repair Café on Shelter Island, the idea of recycling broken items instead of tossing them, sounded like a positive endeavor.

In Ms. Karen’s capable hands, aided by supporters, it has become so much more.

Repair Cafés are meeting places where folks fix products together. It’s a place that has tools and materials to repair most anything, including  furniture, electrical appliances, bicycles, crockery, appliances, toys, you name it. A klutz when it comes to tools? No worries.

At the Repair Café you’ll find expert volunteers, with repair skills in all crafts.

Many items that would have been thrown away by owners will get a new life, saving owners or those who inherit repaired items money they would have spent buying replacements.

As the Repair Café continues gaining momentum, students and others are learning skills that will benefit them and their neighbors. That was something the school administration and Board of Education recognized at the start. Clearly, the Shelter Island Educational Foundation saw the potential in helping to fund the startup.

But there are many more benefits that the program delivers to the community.

Consider the boon the program brings to the environment, saving countless items from the scrap heap. Ms. Karen cited statistics from the Environmental Protection Agency demonstrating millions of tons of small appliance waste being generated by discarded items dumped at landfills. Even recycling centers, which find markets for some of the items, have been unable to sell all to increase municipal coffers. Not all discarded items end up being recycled.

New York State has joined more than 30 other states in adopting “Right to Repair” legislation that becomes another tool to use in getting instructions and materials to buyers that are necessary to repair products. To repair, rather than replace these products is significant. But there’s more.

After more than three years of a great deal of isolation for many because of the COVID-19 pandemic, a community activity that brings people together — especially one that links people to others who may not have been in their social circles — means a richer experience for everyone.

We salute Ms. Karen, those who helped boost the program in its infancy, and all who have participated. To find out how you can get involved, write to Ms Karen at [email protected]