COLRAIN — How many people have a wobbly wooden chair somewhere at home, a shirt with a torn cuff or a missing button, or a lamp that needs a new cord? What do you do if you never learned how to fix that problem?
The answer is bring those broken items to “Repair Colrain: A Free Fixit Day” on Sept. 16 and watch others fix things and learn how to fix them yourself.
Modeled after the Repair Cafe concept that began in The Netherlands, Colrain’s Fixit Day will have “fixers” who can show you how to mend clothes, repair bikes, glue broken ceramics, fix weed-wackers and sharpen knives.
This event, a first for Colrain, will be held next to the Catamount Country Store at 113 Main Road (Route 112) from 1 to 4 p.m.
This Fixit Day was organized by the Griswold Memorial Library.
“It’s our tradition. New Englanders have always mended, fixed and repaired,” say the library trustees, on the town’s website. “We can pass on these valuable skills before they are forgotten.”
They see this as a way to fight planned obsolescence and a consumer culture that encourages every one to buy new things and discard repairable objects.
“The most exciting part for me is bringing the community together,” said Library Trustee Nancy Turkle. “We don’t really have a town center, a coffee shop, a gathering place where people meet.”
“Fixing things is a language everyone can know. Everybody’s got stuff they want to fix,” she added.
Turkle said Repair Cafes started about eight to 10 years ago where people met to work on things needing repair. A Repair Cafe website was started.
Turkle said she recently visited Pittsfield’s Repair Cafe program, and saw how it was set up. Turkle said the Pittsfield group has been holding Repair Cafes for about five years. She said they have about 18 volunteer “fixers” at any of their events.
Turkle said Colrain’s Fixit Day will have a “glue table,” a woodworker’s table and a table set up with sewing machines for clothing repairs. One volunteer, a drummer, will tune drums and show others how to do it. Another volunteer, who doesn’t believe in throwing out razor blades, will show people how to sharpen them.
Turkle said the town transfer station has saved a couple of bicycles for the event, and she hopes some child will leave the event with a repaired bicycle — or at least with a little knowledge about how to fix their own. She hopes children will come to the Fixit Day and learn the value of repairing, rather than discarding useable things.
“The other thing that is really important is just reviving the noble act of repair,” she remarked. “People who fix things, I think, are going to save the world. Farmers (working) in the middle of a field — when something breaks down — have no choice but to fix them. Often, they are people who are creative. We don’t respect that enough in this culture.”
Items suggested for bringing include: small appliances, knives or tools to sharpen, small gas-powered motors, furniture, bicycles for minor repairs, torn clothes, socks to darn, tools with broken handles, items to be glued.