The recent article “Repair Cafe are Popping up Across the Philly Suburbs” in the Main Line Today credits the book “Repair Revolution” as the inspiration for this growth in cafes in the Philadelphia area. Repair Revolution was written by RCHV founder John Wackman and former Warwick Repair Cafe founder (now with the Jersey City Repair Cafe) Elizabeth Knight Moss and is considered the ‘bible’ of the repair movement. Bob Berkowitz, founder of the Downingwood Repair Cafe mentioned in the article, was also formerly an active fixer at the Warwick Repair Cafe.
Photojournalist Piece on Croton Repair Cafe Featured in The Gazette
Photos from the most recent Croton Repair Cafe in July were featured in the local paper, The Gazette, in their July 18-24 issue, 2024.
Irvington Repair Cafe Featured in Rivertowns Dispatch
The recent Irvington Repair Cafe was featured in the new Rivertowns Dispatch, a new news source for the Rivertowns that is currently only distributed as an email. See below for the text of the article. To subscribe to the Rivertowns Dispatch, sign up here.
Decades intersect at repair cafe (Emailed out June 7, 2024)
Mary Slavinski’s radio/cassette/record player, Thom Thacker’s electric drill, and Linda Keil’s AM/FM/shortwave radio were among the 175 items brought to the Repair Café held at the Irvington Public Library on Saturday, June 1, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Of that total, 139 were fixed by 25 volunteer repair coaches, including Slavinski’s record player, which had a needle issue, and Thacker’s drill, which had a power chord problem. Keil’s radio was not fixed, but she was told that she could purchase new capacitors and have them installed at a future repair café.
Slavinski’s record player was repaired by Wiley Weinmann, a seventh-grader at Dobbs Ferry Middle School with an interest in audio equipment made decades before he was born. To test the needle, he used his own copy of “More of the Monkees,” a vinyl album released in 1967.
Thacker’s drill was repaired by Richard Kreisberg of White Plains, who worked as a radio engineer and at Wakefield Paint, a hardware store his grandfather opened in the Bronx in 1929. He now volunteers at St. Bart’s Thrift Shop in White Plains.
Keil’s radio was examined by Dean Gallea of Tarrytown, who worked for Consumer Reports from 1974 to 2016. Gallea tested audio products and then computer hardware and software. He retired as a senior program leader.
In the Rivertowns, repair cafes started in Hastings in 2019, in Dobbs Ferry in 2021, in Irvington in 2022, and in Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow in 2023. The Town of Greenburgh joined that list last month.
Since 2022, Suzie Fromer of Irvington has been the coordinator for Repair Café Hudson Valley, which oversees events in Albany, Columbia, Dutchess, Orange, Putnam, Rensselaer, Rockland, Saratoga, Schenectady, Sullivan, Ulster, Warren, Washington, and Westchester counties.
John Wackman organized the first repair café in the Hudson Valley, in New Paltz, in 2013. The first repair café worldwide was in Amsterdam in 2009.
“I think repair cafes are an incredibly ‘sticky’ idea,” Fromer said about their popularity. “They’re fantastic, fun community events that help you save money (something people are definitely responding to more nowadays), teach you about how your own things work, and mean you're not adding to the waste problem in our society.”
The next Rivertowns Repair Café will be at the James Harmon Community Center in Hastings on Saturday, Oct. 5, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Beacon Repair Cafe's Return Featured in the Highlands Current
Beacon Repair Cafe’s June 2nd cafe was featured in the June 11th issue of the Highlands Current. To read the article, go here.
Town Supervisor Paul Feiner Writes Letter to Editor About Repair Cafes
Greenburgh Town Supervisor Paul Feiner wrote a wonderful letter to the editor in the latest River Journal about the robustly attended Greenburgh Cafe that happened earlier in May with a pitch for residents to attend the next cafe coming up June 1st in Irvington. To read the article, go here.
Greenburgh Repair Cafe Review and Irvington 'pitch' in local Patch
Town of Greenburgh Supervisor Paul Feiner wrote in to his local Tarrytown-Sleepy Hollow Patch to tell the community what a success the recent Greenburgh Repair Cafe and thank all the volunteers hwo ade it a success and also to encourage the communty to attend the upcoming Irvington Repair Cafe. To read the article to here.
New Greenburgh Repair Cafe Featured on Town Cable Channel
The new Greenburgh Cafe was a huge success; click here to watch a video that was posted to the town website about their first ever repair cafe.
New Hebron-Salem Repair Cafe Featured in NYVT Media
Hebron-Salem’s first Repair Cafe, which took place in Salem, NY, was featured in NYVT Media. To read the article, go here.
Repair Cafes Featured at this year's UlsterCorps Service Summit
Holly Shader (organizer, Gardiner and New Paltz) Michelle Elise (zipper fixer), Melissa Iachetta (co-organizer, Kingston) and Suzie Fromer (coordinator, RCHV) were all present at last week’s UlsterCorps Service Summit at SUNY New Paltz which focused on environmental volunteering and activism. Melissa Iachetta spoke on a panel and another panelist was a professor who has restarted the SUNY New Paltz repair cafe on campus. To read the campus coverage on the event, click here.
RCHV, Rivertowns Repair Cafe and Greenburgh Repair Cafe on Local Cable TV
Suzie Fromer (RCHV Coordinator; Irvington Repair Cafe) and Dean Gallea (TarryHollow Repair Cafe) were featured on Greenburgh Town Supervisor Paul Feiner’s Cable access show (Episode 11, April 4, 2024), “Solving Problems with Paul Feiner: Repair Cafe.” To see the segment, go here.