Resources:
Sarah Rigg's Feature Article: Get household items repaired for free at Ypsi library’s new “repair clinic” events
Ypsilanti District Library (YDL)
Transcription:
Lee Van Roth: You're listening to 89.1 WEMU. I'm Lee Van Roth, and this is On the Ground Ypsi. The Ypsilanti District Library is testing out a new way to bring hands-on learning and community connection to its patrons through a repair clinic program. The initiative, whose pilot event took place on March 26th at the library's Michigan Avenue branch, invites residents to bring in everyday household items and learn how to fix them for free using library tools, equipment, and volunteer expertise. With me today to talk about how this first clinic went and what's ahead is YDL librarian Aaron Smith. Aaron, thank you so much for being here!
Aaron Smith: Hey, thanks so much for having me!
Lee Van Roth: So, let's start with this first repair clinic that took place earlier in March. How did it go? And what was the response that you saw from the community that attended?
Aaron Smith: I honestly could not be happier with how it went! This was just last Thursday morning. So, one thing I've been trying to make clear is that this first season, March, April, May, we're doing all three sessions at different times. So, this one was a morning. The next one is a Tuesday evening, 6-7:30. And then, the one in May is a Saturday afternoon. So, trying to gage when people are most available, but also give options to different folks who might not be available at the other times. So, this Thursday morning one, we had had four different people offer to be volunteers. Two of them realized that they couldn't because they had work. So, again, normal lives impact our accessibility to repair and community.
Lee Van Roth: Sure.
Aaron Smith: But we had two volunteers that came in and then several staff members who had volunteer skills. And then, actually, several people who came in to get repairs also had skills, so they were able to swap and share with people. So, our focus on this first one was like clothes mending. Basically, we have several darning for socks and other cloth materials, hand sewing. We have heavy duty sewing machines but did not need them this time. We have patches for holes in jeans and jackets. We actually got a grommet press for patching holes. The one thing we learned that we were missing this time was you need metal snap buttons for coats and jeans, so we didn't have the snaps. The grommet press is good for puncturing holes to make space for a button. One of our other thoughts long-term is that this will also expand into opportunities for like unsheltered folks who need to repair their tents and tarps and things like that, so other heavy duty tools that we want to have access to. So, there were two people. We couldn't do their snaps, but we did several coats like right at the seams, ripping at the seams, hand sewing. Two people brought in their stuffed animals or a pet's favorite stuffy. Coats, we patched some pants. We taught a young man how to sew his buttons back onto his coat, so now he has the skills and the tools to take home with him. So, it's kind of two-fold there where if people don't have the skills and they want to learn, we have folks who can teach you so you can do it yourself. If you don't the time or the interest, we can just help you with it in the moment, but we're trying to make it a multi-layered community activity.
Lee Van Roth: I know that some of the inspiration for this clinic is coming from similar efforts, such as the Detroit Repair Cafe. What made YDL want to bring something like that to Ypsi into the community here?
Aaron Smith: A major concern for me is that many folks know the downtown library was shut down for almost two years.
Lee Van Roth: Right.
Aaron Smith: And even before that shutdown, there were a lot of other things going on in the downtown community that were causing a lot stress on just folks who live in the area, unsheltered folks, businesses, the whole community was hurting in different ways. And so, now that we're back open, we have a lot people who have a invested interest in making the downtown space the best it can be. So, my role, and I think my goal, with the library is to just remind people that we are a community hub. We don't have to have all the skills to host this space. So, the Repair Cafe in Detroit, they have their own office, but they have also been doing recently--you can see on their Instagram--rotating visits to local libraries in the Metro Detroit area, where they go to the library and do the same kind of thing. So, I want to remind other organizations here that we can be a hub. One person that joined us works at Scrap Reuse that offers some of these things, but in classes. They brought their minor jewelry repair skills to the clinic. We have the Ypsi Bike Co-op, I'm hoping I can connect with at some point, so like in the summer. They do bike repairs at the farmer's markets. They could also do it in the plots at the library. Ypsi Pullover Prevention, Ypsi POP is a group that helps do like minor car repairs, like fixing your headlights. They've also offered vaccine clinics and other things based on what they have connecting into them. If I can have many of these organizations just come to the library, we can offer more support and services. And these people can get to know each other, so they can do similar things all around the city.
Lee Van Roth: Something that I've noticed, I think, a lot, especially here in Washtenaw, where we're very fortunate to have the amount of resources that we do have available.
Aaron Smith: Right.
Lee Van Roth: But when you have that wealth of resources, it can be maybe a little bit challenging to figure out who to go to, where to go, to which resources best suited for the issue that you're having or the help that you need. And the library, I know, has been kind of working on being on being in this kind of hub organization for quite a while now. How does fitting this very community driven angle into it where it's not just we want to teach you how to fix your things and keep your things, increase the longevity of your things into we also just want to bring people together in this unique style?
Aaron Smith: Right. The pandemic, the COVID pandemic, also hit a lot of people socially. And so, one thing in our culture, right, is a lot isolation where you need to figure it out yourself. You need to do things alone. You can't depend on other people. And while that is fundamentally true to some extent that we all have to deal with things on our own, there are things where you can learn to get help and build community together. And again, we see that already happening with many other organizations, like I talked about Ypsi POP. There's a group called the Mutual Aid Network of Ypsilanti, the MANY, who are actually creating a house, a mess hall, they want to call it, where they're going to offer like gardening skills and other learning services and have that be a hub for folks. But part of what the library also offers is equitable access for all, right? So, whether you're at the upper crust or whether you are unhoused, you're all welcome in the library, and we can all learn similar overlapping things. And so, it reminds people to actually see each other in real time and recognize we come from different parts of life or different parts of the world, but this is where we overlap. And where our interests are valuable, we are in alignment. The library is a social space that reminds people that you can work together.
Lee Van Roth: There's also, I feel, a sustainability kind of angle here as well. There is, I mean, definitely a culture of if something breaks, just by a new one. Was that also sort of within the minds at the library when putting this event together?
Aaron Smith: Absolutely, yeah. So, again, like consumer culture, throw-away culture, even update culture, like if you can't get your Windows laptop to update, it's toast, right? There are other open source alternatives for almost everything. One thing that I really admire about the Detroit Repair Cafe that we lack here. So, shoutout if folks have these skills is electronics repair, like even minor soldering of wires, you can fix lamps and lights and clocks and keep your favorite clock if it has just the right screen that you like or if you just like the noise it makes or you just don't want to buy a new one or thrift for another one that will be destroyed. They can repair coffee machines. Some people have minor laptop and phone skills. Like, if your phone is cracked. So, these are things where people think I'm just going to use this phone until it's dead. You could make your phone a lot more comfortable and usable if you do some minor repairs. So, those are things I would also like to see us expand into, again, based on community collaboration.
Lee Van Roth: This is WEMU's On the Ground Ypsi. I'm talking with YDL librarian, Aaron Smith. So, Aaron, looking ahead at this resource, you mentioned offering a couple of different days and times to increase accessibility. What else is, hopefully, in the future of the YDL Repair Clinic?
Aaron Smith: So, the first next steps I have is we had about 15 people come into our Thursday session. We got most things done, but again, like metal snaps is one thing we could not do, and several people couldn't get every single item they brought in done. So, besides hosting these monthly drop-in sessions where we can meet people and build community, I do want to create basically like a spreadsheet: a list of folks who are requesting repair and folks who have the skills because the tools we've bought for this program belong to the library in our program funds. And so, I can book a meeting room at the library for a person with selling skills to meet with somebody who needs something repaired. So, that's going to be a slower thing because I can't become a full-time booking agent for this one program among everything else I'm trying to do. But that would be a thing where once people know there's somebody out there with the skills, we can book one-on-one sessions. And also let people find ways to do it, not just at the library, but wherever they want to meet. So, create more third spaces.
Lee Van Roth: And for people who maybe have something they want to have repaired, if it's clothes, if it's minor electronics, things like that, and they aren't sure if someone is going to be there that can fix what they need fixed, how do they connect with this program ahead of time?
Aaron Smith: So, the two best ways, I like to refer people through our library's main website. If you go to ypsilibrary.org and then under "engage," there's a link to contact us. This is our general comments form, but the more comments that come about the Repair Clinic, that is sent to like managers and admin who will see the demand for this program, but also the types of need. And so, if other branches have any space to do something like this, the information would be sheared out, not just to me and my cohort, but to other folks as well. So, the engage and contact us page on the website, but also you can just email me asmith@ypsilibrary.org, and I try to keep everything kind of organized, so we can direct it back to the people we already have on our list of helpers.
Lee Van Roth: Well, Aaron, I want to thank you so much for joining us today and sharing about this new program. You know, hopefully, this leads to not only more folks holding on to their items and to their things, but also driving that community aspect, bringing people together and educating them as well. This is a really exciting time at the library! There's always something going on at the library, it seems like!
Aaron Smith: But trying to reach out, so other folks can be part of it is the bigger part. Yeah. Thank you, Lee, for having me!
Lee Van Roth: For more information on today's topic and links to the full article, visit our website at WEMU.org. On the Ground Ypsi is brought to you in partnership with Concentrate Media. I'm Lee Van Roth, and this is your community NPR station, 89.1 WEMU-FM, Ypsilanti.
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