A few minutes before noon on a Saturday, the hallway outside Repair PDX’s Repair Café holds a line of Portland’s busted belongings. Broken toys, appliances, zippers and more are packed into shopping bags or balanced on laps, waiting their turn for a second chance. In the next room, volunteers are unpacking the tools of their trades—sewing machines and screwdrivers, grease and glue. At noon, the repairs begin, as members of the public hand over their items to waiting volunteers at this monthly free event.
In comes a bright red kitchen blender—after a decade of mixing, it needs a new part installed. In comes a ripped teddy bear, a Hoverboard that won’t hover, an iron that’s given up on getting hot. Thanks to the café’s volunteers, these items are likely headed for a new life, rather than the landfill.
Once a month, in the basement of the Leaven Community Common House in Northeast Portland, Repair PDX volunteers work to fix dozens of items—keeping them from becoming garbage, saving their owners the expense of buying new items and preventing the greenhouse gas emissions to manufacture and transport new goods.
Since 2013, Repair PDX has hosted almost 90 free events serving more than 4,000 participants and repairing over 5,000 items. The items are restored and so is a sense of community for participants and volunteers.
Spreading repair culture with PCEF support
Until receiving a grant from the Portland Clean Energy Community Benefits Fund (PCEF) last year, the organization’s future was uncertain, said co-founder and Executive Director Lauren Gross. Repair cafes are free, and the organization relies on donations to operate, but the organization’s expenses were outstripping revenue.
Then, in September 2024, the Portland City Council approved $92 million in PCEF grants for 71 community-led programs. Included: A two-year $100,000 grant to sustain Repair PDX.
PCEF is a community-created and voter-approved fund that invests in climate justice projects that reduce carbon emissions, create shared prosperity and help make Portland more resilient to a changing climate. The September grants were the third round of grants that PCEF has issued since voters approved the fund in 2018. PCEF is gearing up to issue a new round of grants this spring.
“Community-led projects deliver multiple benefits, bringing people together to address our climate crisis in ways that are highly personal and empowering,” said PCEF Clean Energy Project Manager Kris Grube. “We are looking for and support community-created projects that address both our climate crisis and crisis of inequality. When we truly involve all Portlanders in climate solutions, we find we get multiple benefits.”
Repair PDX expands its offerings
Most Repair PDX events are held in Leaven’s spacious basement, in a building that is shared by other community-minded organizations such as the NE Portland Tool Library.
From there, Repair PDX can offer three-hour repair cafes every month. It can put on specialty workshops such as textile repair and kintsugi, a technique of restoring broken pottery that proudly features a repaired section instead of disguising it. Repair PDX also forms partnerships with other nonprofits. This winter, Repair PDX worked with the nonprofit ReClaim It, which salvaged broken lamps that had been discarded at Metro’s waste transfer station and had been destined for the landfill. A PDX Repair instructor used the broken lamps to teach a repair class. After a safety check, Repair PDX sent the renewed lamps to Community Warehouse—a furniture bank for families in need.
“We wouldn’t be able to do all the things we are doing right now if we didn’t have PCEF,” Gross said. “If we didn’t have this capacity, our work would be very minimal.”
Gross got the inspiration to start the Portland organization from attending a repair café in 2011 in Amsterdam, where the budding community repair movement was taking its first steps. When Gross returned to Portland, she knew the idea would fit perfectly with her hometown’s environmental ethics. She and a team of volunteers hosted the first Portland café in 2013 at a supportive restaurant; over the years, events have moved to several locations throughout the city.
The current location offers stability for the organization, its volunteers and growing community of attendees. Volunteers can spread out their tools and really listen to people as they explain not just how an item got broken, but often why it means more to them than money. The unraveling wool jacket belonged to a relative who recently died. The teddy bear was a gift from a hospital stay. The worn-out quilt was the favorite nest of an aging pet—and needed re-sewing to survive a trip through the washing machine.
Operating with a repair mindset
At a recent cafe, Kyra MacIlveen watched intently as first-time volunteer Peter Grazier took apart her electric teapot. MacIlveen suspected—and Grazier confirmed—that a safety mechanism in the base of the teapot activated when the water boiled dry, shutting off the power to prevent a fire.
“It’s my fault,” MacIlveen said.
“No, it’s the manufacturer’s fault, and it’s a simple problem to fix,” replied Grazier, a retired civil engineer, consultant, and author.
Manufacturers used to put reset buttons on the outside of appliances. But these days, the reset can often be found only by prying open the machine. After wrestling with a rusty screw, Grazier found and released the button—and just like that, the teapot was no longer junk.
“There are things that shouldn’t be thrown out,” she said. “It’s wasteful. It’s wasteful for me, because I’d have to buy a new one, and it’s wasteful for the environment.”
Volunteer Adam Dershewitz agreed. The software engineer, who coaches a bicycle racing team, brought his 13-year-old son, Gaius, a bike racer who is already a skilled bike mechanic. They decided to help fix things after reading about repair cafes in a recycling newsletter; some cafes include both tool sharpening and bike repair services.
Dershewitz grew up on a farm south of Salem where it wasn’t easy to replace old things with new ones; as a kid, he learned to repair by trial and error.
“That process helped me figure out that just because something is broken doesn’t mean it’s garbage,” he said. “It helped me visualize the internals of things and gave me a repair mindset. It also changes the mindset of what you purchase. It makes you realize the consumption and landfill relationship.”
Sharing repair knowledge
Vicki Gustafson has attended almost every repair café. A retired technical designer and the owner of seven sewing machines, she brings a career’s worth of skill to the people sitting on the other side of the folding table.
“There’s nothing I can’t fix, at this point in my life,” she laughed.
Over the years, Gustafson has repaired everything from worn out luggage to beloved stuffed toys. She’s even taken projects home with her when they couldn’t be completed during a repair event, such as the favorite stuffed white horse of a four-year-old, which was losing material through a tear in his leg. Gustafson delights in teaching others—like Justin Dimos, a volunteer who started at the reception table, but now volunteers for sewing repairs in the seat to Gustafson’s right.
Although she prefers difficult projects, the real satisfaction doesn’t come from the complexity of the repair, Gustafson said.
“It doesn’t have to be a big job,” she said. “More than anything, it’s people’s reactions. People are delighted. I get the endorphins from helping people.”
Volunteers can’t fix every item. The success rate is about 95% for sewing, 80% for bicycles and 60% for appliances, Gross said. Mike Walsh and his fifth-grader, Jack, walked away from the café with a hoverboard that was still broken—but with a plan to order a new part and return.
You can attend or volunteer at a Repair Café
Would you like to attend or volunteer at an upcoming café? Repair Cafés are FREE and open to all members of the public. Most are held at Leaven Community House, 5431 NE 20th Avenue in Portland, and Repair PDX also has events at other locations. Find an upcoming event . Mark your calendar and arrive early—these events are first-come, first-served and they can fill up fast. Repair PDX also welcomes volunteers—both people with repair skills and those who wish to learn as well as help in other ways.