Amélie Nault
The Mauril-Bélanger Social Innovation Workshop has crafted a unique partnership with the Ottawa Tool Library (OTL) to host a Repair Café at The Atelier on 95 Clegg Street, adjacent to Saint Paul University, on Saturday, March 2 from 10am until 3pm.
Repair Cafés are an international concept that the OTL brought to Ottawa in 2017 with a goal of reducing landfill waste, exchanging skills, and building community.
The free Repair Café is open to the public and will allow members of the Old Ottawa East community to meet and work with a volunteer OTL fixer to learn new skills and repair their item, which can include small appliances, jewelry, clean clothes, small furniture, electronics, and more! Community members must register their broken item to be repaired at the event on a first-come, first-served basis (only one item per registrant).
The Ottawa Tool Library is a nonprofit tool lending library with a mission to engage and empower the community to participate in sharing resources by providing access to tools and skills for everybody. In addition to its tool library, the OTL provides expertise, workspace for projects, learning events, and Repair Cafés. Since 2014, the OTL has worked with community partners to host events like the Repair Café. Since then, the OTL’s community of volunteers, friends, and partners has grown, helping to make the organization’s events fun, informative, and productive.
