What is a repair café?

A repair café is a community event where people can bring in broken items, like clothing or small appliances, to be fixed by volunteer repair coaches for free. This extends the life of these items and reduces waste in our community. By fixing instead of replacing, we also save valuable resources and money. You can find out more information about repair cafés and where to find them here.

Event Details

Walnut Creek successfully held its first city-wide repair café on January 25, 2025 at the Civic Park Community Center!

This event was inspired by Rossmoor resident Pam Giarrizzo who organized a repair café at Rossmoor in early 2024. By collaborating with Pam and other organizations, the City of Walnut Creek helped to host this event.

The repair café was a community gathering around the tinkering of well-loved goods. Attendees checked in at the front table to get a ticket, and then waited for their name to be called. Of the 164 items that were brought in, more than 2/3 of the items left either fully or partially fixed.

Items that were brought to the repair café included:

• small household appliances like toaster ovens, espresso machines, blenders, music boxes, and more
• clothing
• jewelry
• lamps
• bicycles (for minor repairs, safety checks, adjustments, proper tire inflation, etc.)

Volunteers repaired items to the best of their abilities and made recommendations for any additional steps that were needed.

If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact us at sustainability@walnut-creek.org.

Reducing Waste

In Walnut Creek, as part of the City’s Sustainability Action Plan, we’re aiming to divert 75% of community waste away from landfills by 2030. This means that 75% of that waste will instead be recycled, composted, or repaired. As of 2017, we were at a residential diversion rate of 67%, and we hope that this event will push us even further towards goal to reduce waste.