STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
We have a theme of recycling on today's program. Elsewhere, we report on sea glass trash polished by water into something special. Now we report on repair fairs, which encourage people to learn how to fix broken stuff instead of tossing it out. North Country Public Radio's Catherine Wheeler reports from a small town in northern New York, one of the many American places you hear from on NPR.
CATHERINE WHEELER, BYLINE: Inside a community hockey arena, a handful of volunteer fixers are spread out with tools in hand, ready to help. Carol Budd (ph) and Ann Heidenreich (ph) are hunched over a sewing machine. Budd carefully deconstructs it, pulling out the bobbin, the plate, the bobbin holder.
CAROL BUDD: Now, if we take a look in there, what do we see?
WHEELER: Lots and lots of fuzz.
ANN HEIDENREICH: Oh, yeah.
BUDD: Yeah, you've got lots of stuff in here.
HEIDENREICH: Well, this...
WHEELER: Budd is showing Heidenreich how to do some basic sewing machine maintenance.
HEIDENREICH: I've taken it out to be cleaned and serviced, but I've never done this myself. So now I know. This is great.
WHEELER: This is exactly what's supposed to happen here at Canton's first-ever repair fair.
(SOUNDBITE OF BICYCLE WHEEL SPINNING)
WHEELER: Tom van de Water (ph) just fixed a bike that couldn't go uphill. Now he's trying to put the chain back on.
TOM VAN DE WATER: We're just talking about not getting frustrated by inanimate objects.
WHEELER: In the spirit of working with what you have, Van de Water is balancing the bike in the air, spinning the wheel, listening to hear if it's all clicking.
(SOUNDBITE OF BICYCLE WHEEL SPINNING)
VAN DE WATER: It's troubleshooting, and it's fun to figure out how things work and how to fix things. And sometimes - most of the time, it's a pretty simple fix.
(SOUNDBITE OF SCRAPING GLUE)
WHEELER: Denny Morreale (ph) has a simple fix right in front of him, a footstool with a leg that needs to be reattached.
DENNY MORREALE: Basically, I'm scraping away the old glue, and I'll sand it down and then put fresh glue on and clamp it up.
(SOUNDBITE OF SANDING)
WHEELER: Morreale says he learned the art of repair slowly, by picking up project after project. Sometimes, it was broken furniture left on the curb.
MORREALE: People can fix a lot more than they realize. And even when you fail, it changes the way you think about buying something new. It gives you different eyes towards what to look for.
WHEELER: Fixing does change your perspective. Cassandra Bolesh (ph) was just one of a few people who stopped by. She brought in a small cart full of things - an umbrella with a broken tip, a sweatshirt that needed hemming. Bolesh says the event showed the creative and collaborative side of what could be considered a chore.
CASSANDRA BOLESH: One woman, like, helped me by bringing my project to another woman to help. So it's like a doctor giving you a referral. Like, you know, not everyone's going to have every skill, but everybody has something they can bring to the table.
WHEELER: Organizers say almost everything that came in the door got fixed and returned to a useful life.
For NPR News, I'm Catherine Wheeler in Canton, New York.
(SOUNDBITE OF CORNERSHOP'S "JASON DONOVAN / TESSA SANDERSON")
INSKEEP: That story wasn't broken, but if it was, we would have fixed it and brought it to you. It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep.
A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
And I'm A Martínez.
(SOUNDBITE OF CORNERSHOP'S "JASON DONOVAN / TESSA SANDERSON") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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