Background

WORLDWIDE: The Repair Café movement began in the Netherlands in 2009, aiming to help encourage people to mend their things rather than throw them away. There are now repair cafes running all around the world. 

It is not a professional repair service, but a place people can bring their items for help to have a go themselves, with advice from volunteers, provided for free.

LOCALLY: Karen Bentley-Brown started Simply Repair in Kendal in 2017 and in 2018 a collaborative project by the Churches of Grange ran a repair cafe session at Grange United Reformed Church. Ulverston started a repair cafe in 2019. 

As you might imagine, Covid has distracted much repair cafe activity, but the desire to start something again on our peninsula has been at the heart of many a conversation locally over the last few years and we are delighted our first cafe is taking place this month. We are grateful to Karen Bentley-Brown for her time and energy to help this become a reality.

To volunteer your repair services, help out at events or register items to bring in, use this link  

LOCAL REPAIR BUSINESSES - WORKING TOGETHER: We do not want to be in competition with the professional skills that local repair businesses offer. We hope our events will encourage people to consider taking more items for repair if they are unable to mend them themselves. At the Repair Cafe we will be sharing information about local options for seeking professional repair.