DICAN Reports Another Exceptionally Successful Repair Café on March 15th.
Despite the forecast for a wet, windy Sunday the rain was quite kind to the Repair Café. With the help of tents, tarps and being able to work inside the Recycling Centre, everyone stayed dry.
Our volunteer experts are so amazing: Graham Hayman, Peter Marshall, David Scruton, Michael Rapati, Mits Narusawa, Clark Siferd and Remi Skolney are our repeat contributors. This year we also had Ron Smith, (Lisa’s uncle) a certified mechanic. Ron had such a great time that he plans to start a Repair Café in Red Deer, Alberta.
Joy Bockman brought some much appreciated gluten-free muffins. Coffee and tea were delivered to our intrepid volunteers to help keep them warm.
The event statistics do not tell the real story of how information from the event is taken home and amplified; even more items are maintained and repaired thus preventing or delaying that trip to the landfill. We would like to expand the number and range of events we do on Denman but we are limited by funds and volunteer capacity. The event every year has been sponsored by the Denman Island Climate Action Network (DICAN). We have a small budget and we give each expert a gift certificate to the local hardware store with a thank you card.
This year saw:
- 9 or more chainsaws fixed
- 2 weed whackers restored
- 30 tools sharpened
- 1 computer keyboard cleaned
- 1 barbeque taken apart and fixed
- 1 handle installed
- 2 wheelbarrows assembled
- 1 typewriter case opened
Overheard quote for the day: “Why haven’t I come to this before?”
Many thanks to everyone who came and made the day so much fun.
Heather McLean/Denman Island Climate action Network
