Repair café in Moncton keeps dozens of items out of the landfill
Moncton's Renald Daigle diagnosed a broken vacuum in five minutes and took another three to fix it for free.
It was Daigle's second quick fix after he repaired a broken wooden table at a repair café event on Saturday at Moncton's Youth Quest building on St. George Street.
He said he has 45 years of experience and can repair a range of electronic and mechanical items.
"As a young guy I was always interested in tearing stuff apart," he said.
The event was inspired by a global repair café movement that began in the Netherlands in 2007, said Daigle.
The goal is to reduce environmental impact by using objects for a longer period of time, he said.
Daigle said not everything can be repaired because parts aren't always available. He said people should make smarter purchases and reduce wastage.
Etienne Lasseube diagnoses a music system. (Rhythm Rathi/CBC)
"If you come to my place, everything has been used, and well used, and most of the time it is repaired at least a couple of times," he said.
A monthly repair
The event was organized by a Moncton non-profit group called RepairVerse, which aims to repair and extend the life of objects.
Ali Ahmar, the non-profit's founder, said he is a minimalist when it comes to making purchases and he believes in preserving resources. That's what drove him to host the event in Moncton.
"I wanted to help people get their stuff repaired, I wanted to help the environment by decreasing waste," he said.
Ali Ahmar said he wanted to join the repair café movement by providing people in Moncton with free repairs. (Rhythm Rathi/CBC)
Fourteen volunteers repaired items that included electronics, clothing, small wooden items and jewelry.
About 24 items were repaired within the first three hours, Ahmar said.
He said some repair enthusiasts were turned away due to space constraints. He said the event has motivated him to have it on the second Saturday of every month.
"We were not logistically ready for this ... next time we would be better prepared to serve them, we'll have definitely a bigger space," he said.
Ahmar said providing free repairs is the first phase of his project. He also wants to help people learn a skill to repair their belongings.
Dominic Savoie helped repair electronics and computers. (Rhythm Rathi/CBC)
Precious memories
Suzanne Melanson spent her day repairing buttons and fixing zippers. Melanson sewed using needles while another volunteer brought in a sewing machine to perform small alterations.
"It just fell within my wheelhouse of wanting to have things that lasted a lot longer than what the manufacturers had in mind for it," said Melanson.
Her interest piqued after attending a repair café in Montreal many years ago. She said she began one in Moncton and conducted about seven events, which were later halted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Suzanne Melanson ran a repair café in Moncton before the COVID-19 pandemic. (Rhythm Rathi/CBC)
Melanson said someone else taking the baton made her happy and she decided to contribute her skill.
Melanson said these events also help promote community culture and help different generations pass on their skills to young enthusiasts that come in to help.
Many came together to provide free repairs at Moncton's repair café on Saturday. (Rhythm Rathi/CBC)
She said sometimes the stories behind repairs are also interesting, and bringing a smile to someone's face is precious.
"We had somebody this morning who brought in a musical jewelry box that was her grandmother's," she said. "This woman brought her young daughter, I think about five years old, and now the young daughter will be able to have her great grandmother's musical jewelry box."
