Repair Café at the Summer Tuesday Cooperstown Farmers’ Market

The Cooperstown Repair Café series continues on Tuesday, September 9 from 12 pm to 2 pm at the Summer Tuesday Cooperstown Farmers’ Market.

Members of the community are invited to bring in broken items for volunteer repair experts to make small repairs and give advice on how to fix a variety of items. The repairs will be done free of charge, materials needed to fix items will be available to purchase. The Repair Café series is a collaborative program of Otsego 2000, which runs the Market, the Otsego County Conservation Association, and the Otsego Land Trust.

“September 9 will be our biggest Repair Café yet,” said Peg Odell, program and communications manager at Otsego 2000. “We will have a great group of repair coaches who can help with jewelry, computers, small appliances, sewing projects, cell phones, lamps, wood items, and more.” She said this is the eighth Cooperstown Repair Café held this year, and to date almost 100 items have been fixed.

The sewing repair coach, Pamela Cooley, will demonstrate repurposing and visible mending techniques and also help with textile items that need patching or darning. “Pamela will show you how to give a piece of clothing a new look to enjoy for years to come,” said Odell.

The Repair Café concept was developed by Martine Postma in the Netherlands in 2009, and now there are more than 4,300 community-run Repair Cafés around the world.

Repair Cafés build community and promote repairing items instead of throwing them out, thereby decreasing the number of items added to landfills every year.

The Cooperstown Farmers’ Market is located at 101 Main Street in Pioneer Alley in Cooperstown. For more information on the Cooperstown Repair Café, or to volunteer to be a repair coach, please see otsego2000.org/repaircafe or call 607/547-8881.