Repair Café Oceanside

GRANT:

Neighbourhood Small Grant

RECIPIENT:

Lally Grauer

DATE RECEIVED:

2024-04-20

I am writing to express our heartfelt thanks for supporting the Repair Café Oceanside held on April 20, 2024. Our Repair Café was a tremendous success! Organizing the first event of its kind in Parksville-Qualicum Beach, we expected perhaps fifty people to attend. To our surprise and great joy, 126 people showed up with their treasured items for repair. We had to print extra registration forms in the middle of the event.

The NSG grant enabled us to pay for the significant cost of the website, venue fee (St. Stephen United Church’s capacious hall in Qualicum Beach) and printed publicity. Also, because of your support, we are able to use collected voluntary donations from the April event to help mount a second Repair Café Oceanside, which we will be holding on Saturday, January 25, also at St. Stephen’s.

Over a dozen volunteers in our community skilled in repair were there to help with fixing small appliances, electronics, tech items, lamps, bicycles, small furniture, clothes that needed mending and knives that needed sharpening.

Others from our organizing committee helped with recruitment, publicity, logistics, coordination, registration, set-up and clean-up, feedback, and the café side of things.

The response was overwhelmingly positive. Here are some comments from the feedback:

“It is such a wonderful idea and service. It helps so many people and helps our landfill and the bonus is meeting such nice people.”
“Excellent idea, my vacuum of over 30 years is back!”
“Skilled volunteers who persevered had equipment to do repairs.”
“This is great! Keep doing what you are doing.”

Thank you again for your help in bringing about the Oceanside Repair Café.

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