By Therese Brummel

Pasadena Public Works asked Northeast Los Angeles (NELA) Transition to create a Zero Waste Booth for this year's Earth and Arts Festival. That's when it all began.  We delved into the problem the shrinking landfill area at Pasadena's Scholl Canyon.  When you throw it away, there is no away.

The same month, the NY Times ran a story on the Netherlands excelling in reducing, reusing, and recycling. My own sense is that it comes as a result of their cherishing of the little land they have reclaimed from the sea and increasing economic austerity measures. "The Netherlands puts less than 3 percent of their municipal waste into landfill". Martine Postma, the Dutch founder of Repair Cafe, of which there are now thirty in the Netherlands says that "the value of the Repair Cafe is that it puts people back into relationship with material things". In other words, taking away the disposable mentality we are addicted to. 

I was personally fascinated, in part because my family is from the Netherlands and I know these values to be in the culture. Homes and appliances are small, thriftiness is common and their healthcare for all is a permaculture kind of value. My grandpa sharpened his own lawnmower blades and repaired his hand forged shovel. My Internet search turned up Dutch YouTubes on Repair Cafes in several dIfferent towns including my grandparents town, Nijmegen, Netherlands. I took that as a prompt from the ancestors to take action. 

After a feeler post on our Arroyo Time Bank to take the temperature of the community on the idea of possibly America's first Repair Cafe, we were overwhelmed by the number of folks cheering and offering to repair anything from tears in polyurethane and rubber to lamp rewiring, bikes and computer soldering. The overwhelming cry, however was for clothes mending. And interestingly the repair work the greatest number said they could offer was sewing! An easy aha moment!  Organizers and artists stepped forward.  The first meeting established a momentum for the Repair Cafe almost alive in the mere concept.

The first event July 14, 2012 had seven sewing machines humming for 3 hours and thirty clothing items repaired in a festive atmosphere.  An entity was established on the Time Bank and a Time Bank "cashier" with laptop recorded all transactions. Cash donations were made by two non-Time Bankers.  

 

  



 

Thanks to Therese for sharing this story!