Make do and mend cafes are bringing new life to loved items
Acraze for making do and mending is sweeping Calderdale.
Repair cafes are starting to pop up all over the borough, offering the chance to reinvigorate much-loved household items and clothing.
Some of their popularity is thanks to BBC TV show The Repair Shop – described as “a heartwarming antidote to throwaway culture” – which sees expert craftspeople bringing loved pieces of family history and the memories they hold back to life.
There have been repair cafes launched in Todmorden, Mytholmroyd and Heptonstall, and now there is also one in Halifax.
Skircoat Repair Cafe held its first session at All Saints Parish Hall on Godfrey Road earlier this month, offering the chance for people to bring in their broken items for volunteer ‘fixers’ to try to mend in return for a donation.
The project is affiliated to Repair Café International - a scheme which began in the Netherlands in 2010.
As well as saving items from landfill, the project aims to promote community connection through bringing people together.
There are currently 2,980 repair cafés internationally and an estimated 53,640 items are fixed every month.
"It all started last summer with a chance conversation on a local Facebook group about a broken blender which someone wanted to repair instead of throwing away’ says Sarah Frank, one of the Skircoat Repair Cafe organisers.
"We went on a couple of field trips to local repair cafés – it seemed like such a brilliant simple idea as well as lots of fun.
"Next thing we were forming a committee, and it went from there!”
The organising committee also includes Rachel Hollingworth and Sean Wallace, Skircoat ward councillor Ann Kingstone, and Jane Simmons and Hazel
Bowerman from South Halifax Churches Together – a group which is committed to taking local action to tackle climate change.
As well as helping on the organising committee, Coun