Can you sew a button on my pants?
Can you fix my bicycle?
Can you repair my chair?
Those were some of the challenges faced by the volunteers who helped out Saturday, April 20, at the Repair Café in the community room of the South Pasadena Public Library.
More than 160 people registered for the over three-hour event. Fourteen volunteers — most from South Pasadena — helped the visitors deal with a variety of problems, which included fixing a humidifier, reviving a jammed pepper grinder and refurbishing both a bird feeder and Christmas lights.
“Everyone has something stashed away in a drawer and it’s been fun to bring some of these treasures back to life,” said Shannon De Jong, who has her own online jewelry business.
De Jong, who has lived in South Pasadena for 20 years, spent her first hour as a volunteer restringing both a pearl and a coral necklace.
“I have the skill set, so I thought I’d help out,” said De Jong while refurbishing an outsized piece of costume jewelry.
Deborah O’Neil, a South Pasadena resident for more than five decades, talked over a sewing machine that she used to repair pants and nightgowns with holes.
O’Neil boasts a lifetime skill of helping make prom dresses and costumes for her children. She now invites her grandchildren to her home to pass along what she knows about homemaking and sewing on a button.
Members from the city’s community garden cosponsored the session and also had a booth. The program was made available through a sustainability grant from the California State Library. The Pasadena Repair Café also provided support for the event.
The doors opened 30 minutes early because people were lined up with things that required fixing.
“We were able to save a lot of items that would have been disposed of, and, in turn, were able to save attendees the money they would have had to spend on new items,” said librarian Olivia Radbill, who coordinated the event.
“The best part of the event, however, was seeing community members interact and share knowledge and resources with each other. I am pleased that this event served as such a productive means of facilitating community connection and mutual aid,” she said.
Mike O’Neil admitted to working on things since he was a boy when he helped build clubhouses with his friends.
He now has a garage full of stuff to work on, and he had just attempted to repair brakes on a bicycle. It turns out the person who brought in the bicycle had the wrong kind of brakes.
“I love to tinker, and I love the challenge of fixing things with what I have in my garage,” said Mike O’Neil, whose career included a variety of jobs in the nursing home industry.
People came in with their bicycles and Mike O’Neil, in a bit more than an hour, had fixed a flat tire and gear shifter in addition to wrestling with the mismatched brakes.
He even kindly made an offer to see if anything needed fixing on this reporter’s rolling walker.
First published in the April 26 print issue of the South Pasadena Review.
