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Difference Makers: #Spokane's #RepairCafé and #MendItCafé reframe relationship with household items

Emry Dinman, The Spokesman-Review, Spokane, Wash., Mon, December 29, 2025

Excerpt: "Two Spokane organizations, which launched independently just months apart, are part of an international movement to help people extend the life of their belongings — and encourage them to buy things with lives worth extending — by repairing them for free and teaching anyone interested how to do those repairs in the future.

"For the most part, the volunteers learned their skills through their careers or, just as frequently, from their parents and grandparents. In a time when fewer and fewer families still have these skills in circulation, the Spokane Repair Café and Mend-It Café provide an answer even for those without money to spend at a repair shop.

The Mend-It Café, specializing in clothes and textiles, launched in May 2023 with its first mending event hosted in partnership with #ArtSalvage and #SpokaneZeroWaste. That latter organization's executive director, Elyse Hochstadt, started Spokane Zero Waste to help address, as the name suggests, a local waste stream choked with cheap disposables that contribute to greenhouse gas emissions."

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#Mending #BuildingCommunity #RepairCafesSpokane #WashingtonState #ThrowawayCulture #FastFashion #RightToRepair #RepairCafes