Humber professor Kimberly Prince had an old 20-year-old lamp that needed repair.
She brought the lamp to Humber’s Repair Café because it would have cost her $100 despite it being a “simple fix."
“It's a lot easier sometimes to just get somebody else to use their skills rather than me follow some YouTube video and do it that way,” Prince said.
She said she was raised to learn to fix things herself. To repair instead of buying another, or throwing the broken item out, despite it being countercultural, “maybe because I’m old.”
“In many cases, people just never learned how to fix stuff themselves,” Prince said. “They just didn't see the value in fixing things. It just became easier to buy new stuff.”
She said there is satisfaction in doing something herself.
The Office of Sustainability, the Library, and Idea Lab collaborated to host a Repair Café event that allowed community members to bring in any item to get fixed for free.
The Repair Café was held for the on March 24 at the North campus..
A Humber press release said Repair Cafés are a community event where others can come together to fix things, learn new skills and reduce waste.
Last year’s event held at both Lakeshore and North campuses diverted 300 kilograms of waste from a landfill, the release said.
Gabi Hentschke works at Humber’s Office of Sustainability and said they are being bold and hope to beat last year’s numbers despite the event taking place only at North campus.
Hentschke did not elaborate on why the cafe was only at North this time.
She said they get more people registering for the event.
Hentschke said people can learn through the event to hold on to what they have instead of buying a replacement and overconsuming, or buying cheap items that will break.
“It’s a very big problem we have in the world right now,” she said.
Hentschke said Humber is a school of so many trades and tech programs that lend well to a Repair Café.
“We have highly skilled people already in our community,” she said. “We have the space, we have the skills."
Joseph Chan was one of the fixers and organizers at the event. He said the Repair Café brought together the culture of mending.
“I can't change policy and government. I'm not one of those folks, but at least on the local level, I can change things here for people and how to build that up from the ground up,” he said
Chan said it is in his personality to help people.
He said someone brought in a baby monitor that was broken, and they didn’t have the money to replace it.
The speaker just needed to be reattached, he said.
“That’s the small little thing, very simple, but does wonders for someone who can’t access the part or does not have the time to do it and can't buy another one,” Chan said.
“We simply lack the resources, we lack the time or the information to repair something,” he said.
Anna Kiropolis brought in a dress to get fixed and said she would have thrown the dress out if the Repair Café did not exist.
“I'd probably just throw it out, and it would end up in a landfill with so many other clothes,” she said.
She said teh dress had lived a full life, and now can have a new one.
Kiropolis said it costs more to ship out an item or to return it, than to throw it in the garbage, making the easier solution the less sustainable one.
“I think we need to make other solutions that are even easier than just throwing it in the garbage,” she said.
