By Tanya Steele
A little bit of crafting can do a lot of good, and a small community organization in Knox has received funding from local government to continue doing just that.
The Knox Repair Café received a grant from the Knox City Council’s Community Development Fund at the end of July and is making good progress with the funds after a year of excellent repairs.
Last year, the cafe saved just over 600kg of waste from landfill and Knox City Council awarded the volunteer-run group an $11,000 grant, which it will use to expand its operations at its two sites in Ferntree Gully and Rowville.
Stephanie Mapleson, volunteer coordinator at Knox Café, said the grant will enable the development of a new app and help increase public awareness of the café.
“The main thing we wanted to achieve with our funding was to develop an app that would make it easy for people to book a repair at our repair café at one of our two locations,” she said.
Ms Mapleson said the cafe currently does not have a booking system – this will change with the funding.
“We have a volunteer named Jim who has very competently developed a prototype of the app that we hope to develop and launch at the end of our funding,” she said.
Ms Mapleson said the app would have an interface that would allow users to enter the item they wanted to repair and the venue they wanted to go to.
“We ask for a few details and they can say which venue they would like to visit,” she said.
Voluntary repairs can then be organized through the app to schedule appointments for customers.
The funds will also be used to build relationships in the community and raise awareness of the cafe, as well as offering free training so people can learn to repair their appliances at home.
Ms Mapleson said the cafe had hosted several sewing workshops, a workshop on bicycle maintenance, car maintenance, electronics, etc.
“When we run a workshop, several people can participate and everyone can learn something,” she said.
The Knox Repair team has also partnered with students from Deakin University, who are testing and refining the app as it develops, and also doing some social media exposure.
“They give it back to us for testing and we will test it with our volunteers,” Ms Mapleson said.
“We hope to be able to start this year,” she said.
The Knox Café team hopes that the organization of around 20 volunteers can continue to grow and help people keep their broken items out of landfill.
“We are the only repair cafe in Knox – we are keen to be part of Knox’s waste reduction strategy,” said Ms Mapleson.
The cafe offers a range of repair services for items such as clothing, furniture, electronics and appliances.
The experienced repair experts repair broken objects with passion and give them a new life.
“We have a lot of our fixes on our social media,” Ms Mapleson said.
From a dancing Santa Claus who had stopped dancing, to vintage dolls over 70 years old, to broken sewing machines, a range of kitchen appliances and much more, the repair team found some interesting items to repair.
“Sometimes it’s just a matter of taking all the ballast out of a sewing machine, oiling it and showing people how to maintain their own machine. Sometimes it’s more of a mechanical repair,” Ms Mapleson said.
“We have some beautiful stories,” she said.
The Knox Repair Café is open on the second Saturday of the month from 10am-12pm at the Knox Environment Society Kindergarten, 1010 Burwood Highway, Ferntree Gully and on the fourth Saturday of the month from 10am-12pm at the Rowville Men’s Shed, Police Road, Rowville.
