Seamstresses work on items during the summer edition of Repair Cafe Clark County.
Electronics expert Neal Sedell works on a pair of headphones as part of Repair Cafe Clark County.
Volunteer Fred Davis sharpens a gardening tool.
Volunteer Dan Cowan works on a bike.
Clark County has an option for repairing everything from bikes to blouses, and the best part is the work is free.
The scene at Filbin’s Ace Hardware Aug. 24 was bustling, as volunteer experts on different types of repairs took looks at items members of the public brought in hoping to get them fixed. The event was the summer quarter event for Repair Cafe Clark County, which has been putting on such cafes every few months this year.
Items generally fit into a few categories, such as small electronics and appliances, sewing, tool sharpening, bicycles as well as a catch-all category for items such as jewelry and broken ceramics.
Not quite an hour into the two-hour event, Jessica Ausel, volunteer coordinator for Repair Cafe Clark County had already counted about 90 people, on track to be more than last quarter’s event by the end.
The August edition of the cafe also took advantage of summer weather, as the location at Filbin’s had its cafe in a fenced outdoor area off the main building. It was the third event so far, with the first one hosted at the Habitat for Humanity Store in Vancouver and the second at the Downtown Vancouver Community Library.
The cafe will be heading north in November, as the Battle Ground Community Center will be the site of the winter quarter edition, Ausel said. For next year, Ausel said they will be hosting an event in East County — in Camas or Washougal.
The cafe came together by a collaboration of eight different entities including city and county government departments, local nonprofits and businesses who wanted to bring the worldwide Repair Cafe movement to Clark County.
There are about 20 volunteers for each event, Ausel said. At the outset when the sponsor committee put out requests for volunteers, more than 100 people expressed interest.
Although Ausel said she did have some sewing skill, she deferred to the seamstress volunteers with years of professional experience. The expertise of the volunteers was something she lauded, mentioning a specific example from the first cafe.
“One of our volunteers had repaired sewing machines for his entire life,” Ausel said. “Of course, a sewing machine shows up and he was able to repair it.”
Mike Filbin, owner of Filbin’s Ace Hardware and part of the repair cafe sponsor committee, also touched on the skills the volunteers possessed.
“You can call your neighbor and get free labor; it’s the expertise,” Filbin said. “These people all have some chosen expertise.”
As to why hosting the cafe made sense, the answer was obvious — fixing and repairing things is what a hardware store helps people to do.
“We’re in the home preservation business, not in the home renovation business,” Filbin said. The location was also a benefit. When an item needed a specific part to get back up and running it could be bought at the store.
Apart from the service aspect of the repair cafes, Filbin touched on the educational aspect of the events, especially given a societal trend toward less repair and more replace, something both he and Ausel recognized.
“For a lot of people, when something breaks they are just going to throw it away and buy a new one,” Ausel said.
“There’s a huge generational aspect to it, I mean my grandfather could fix anything with a stick of gum and a paperclip,” Filbin said.
Coming to one of the events could be a learning experience.
“It’s not just that you come in, dump your junk off and someone fixes it for you, it’s that you come in and sit across the table from someone who is volunteering their time and their talents to help you fix your stuff,” Filbin said.
