Repair cafe gets community on the mend

Volunteers in one parish are bringing new life to broken items to help people save money and learn new skills.

Parishioners in Llwchwr and Gorseinon are running a Repair Cafe, where people can bring their broken or damaged household items to be repaired, for free, by volunteers. This prevents items from going to landfill and saves people money. The cafe also brings people together, reducing isolation and enabling skill-sharing.

Organiser Gill Knight, who is also chair of the diocese's Eco Church working group, says, "The Repair Cafe is run by the parish under the umbrella of Repair Cafe Wales.

"We use volunteers mainly from our own congregation, but also other local contacts, to offer free repairs to items brought in. These range from mechanical toys through clocks, bikes, electrical items such as vacuums, laminators, hairdryers, to sewing repairs and mending crockery. It's great fun to see what comes in next.

"We are not like TVs Repair Shop -. we don't make things beautiful again, but we do try to make them work again. As it's for free, people understand if it can't be done, but still appreciate the effort. We offer free tea and coffee and encourage people to wait and watch the repair - the ethos being that having watched they may be able to fix it themselves next time.. It makes a good atmosphere in the hall, with eight to 10 volunteers helping one another and chatting to the 'customers'"

Repair Cafe Wales is keen to hear from churches that would like to get involved and more information is available on the website.