Repair Cafés are making a difference our area
Our next Repair Café will be Saturday, October 25, 2025
Innovation Center at Saratoga, 16 Old Stonebreak Road, Malta
It’s free. No reservation needed. Just stop in with your broken item.
What do you do with a broken kitchen appliance? Or a chair with a broken rung? Or a shirt with a rip or a lost button? Toss it? No way!
Do you hate throwing things away that seem like they could be fixed if only you knew how? Help us support the repair movement to Saratoga Springs! Repair Cafés are free community events with the goals of repairing broken objects to extend their life, keeping things out of landfills, and fostering an appreciation for the art of repairing things.
We held our first Repair Café on June 16, 2018 at the Saratoga Springs Public Library and we are amazed at how quickly this event became popular in the community. It is tremendously gratifying to be part of this repair movement. People visiting the Repair Café bring along their broken items from home, and various volunteer repair coaches are on hand to help repair broken items free of charge. We have tools and commonly needed materials on hand during the event. Electronics, small appliances, textiles, wooden furniture, toys, jewelry…most things that are broken are welcome. We cannot guarantee that we will be able to fix everything, but we are pretty sure you will have a good time while you are here.
Some examples of things we can likely repair (not an exhaustive list; we will try to repair anything you bring)
- Electrical items: Lamps; hair dryers; kitchen appliances; plug, switch & power cord repairs; clock; vacuum cleaners; fans; games & toys
- Wooden items: Furniture (chairs, small tables); toys & doll furniture; picture or mirror frames
- Clothes: Replace buttons; hem pants/skirts; replace zippers; patch holes or tears; minor alterations
- Textiles and leather: Repair blankets & quilts, handbags; dolls or stuffed animals
- Jewelry: Replace clasps, restringing, gluing
- Computers: Software installation, basic diagnostic & troubleshooting
- Misc items: Rewire frames and mirrors, repair broken ceramics, fix things with stripped out screws
2025 Schedule
• Sunday, March 2 2025 – 1:00-4:00 pm, Dutcher Community Room, Saratoga Springs Library
• Saturday, September 13 – 1:00-4:00 pm, Dutcher Community Room, Saratoga Springs Library
• Saturday, October 25 – 1:00-4:00 pm, Innovation Center at Saratoga, 16 Old Stonebreak Road, Malta
• Sunday, December 7 – 1:00-4:00 pm, Dutcher Community Room, Saratoga Springs Library
New parking restrictions are in place: Library parking lots are restricted to holders of library parking permits during the day. Check here for info on how to obtain a permit. If you don’t have a library parking permit, you will need to park on the street or in one of the nearby parking garages.
For dates for other Repair Cafés in our area, see the Hudson Valley Repair Café Calendar
We need you! Volunteer to be a Repair Coach today.
Do you have a special fix-it skill? Are you a general handyperson who can fix almost anything? We are always looking for volunteers to help us extend the life of broken objects. You don’t have to be an expert. Click this link to tell us about your skills and get information about how to become a Repair Café coach.
About the Repair Café Foundation
The Repair Café concept arose in the Netherlands, in 2009, and was formulated by Martine Postma, at the time an Amsterdam-based journalist/publicist. In 2010, she started the Repair Café Foundation. This foundation provides support to local groups around the world wishing to start their own Repair Café and work toward these goals:
- to bring back repairing into local society in a modern way;
- to maintain repair expertise and to spread this knowledge; and
- to promote community cohesion by connecting neighbors from different backgrounds and experiences through an inspiring and low-key event.
Saratoga Springs Repair Café is co-sponsored by:
Malta Repair Café is co-sponsored by:
