Repair Cafés breathe new life into broken household items, teach people to fix on their own

CHICAGO (WLS) -- Twice a month in Evanston, volunteers sit face-to-face with people troubleshooting and diagnosing the symptoms of a beloved but broken household gadget.

Much like a hospital for all things broken, they're trying to find a way to mend and breath new life into the item.

The Evanston Repair Café is held every fourth Tuesday and every first Saturday at the Robert Crown Center.

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"The most popular item is our lamps, people always have broken lamps," said Anne Opila, a co-coordinator of the cafe. "In the summer, we'll have a lot of fans, we get toasters, we get clocks, we get vacuum cleaners."

There are more than 3,000 similar Repair Cafés around the world, with a mission to reduce waste, promote community, and preserve traditional repair skills.

"Patrons come in and they work together to repair their item. It prevents us from throwing things away that fills up our landfills so that we can continue to use them, and they go on to live a happy life," said Opila.

Known as a volunteer repair coach, John Martin is a retired maintenance mechanic working in the general repair section of the café.

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"People are not aware that they can fix things, they figure, the philosophy in this country is buy, buy, buy, if it's not working get rid of it," explained Martin.

But with a little help from a handy neighbor or a retired and skilled volunteer almost anything can be fixed.

"What we're doing here is trying to encourage people to fix stuff themselves and give them the skills and knowledge to be able to not only do it themselves and maybe pass it on to somebody," said Martin.

"I have this Smeg toaster, and I dropped it," explained customer Coco Colin. "It's such a nice piece I don't just want to throw it away."

Beyond general repair, they also have sewing coaches to help mend or hem clothing.

"On Saturdays, which is our busier day we also have jewelry repair, knife sharpening, plant advice, paper conservation, musical instrument advice. So we really bring in all the skills that people are willing to volunteer for and then people can take advantage, they're all free and all available," said Opila.

"It's like a mission because there's so many things need to be done for the environment this some little thing i can do," said Martine.

Opila said they don't have data on how many items have the cafe has saved from landfills. But she estimates they have an 80% repair rate.

The first Repair Cafe dates back to 2009 in Amsterdam. There are over 2,500 worldwide.

You can find one closest to you HERE.

This story is part of our Climate Ready series - a collaboration between ABC News and the ABC Owned Television Stations focused on providing practical solutions to help you and your family adapt to extreme weather events and the current challenges of climate change.