Document archive

Community Repair Events (CREs), including Fixit Clinics and Repair Cafés, are community supported events that provide free repair services and support for do-it-yourself fixers. To date, no research has been conducted and shared with the public to suggest best practices. This paper aims to capture common practices, highlight some of the best ones, and recommend suggestions for better practices based on a literature review, website scan, and an informal survey and follow-up interviews with Community Repair Event Coordinators.

From July to December 2017, the City of Eugene offered a series of community repair events, branded as “Fix-It Fairs,” to the local community. The community’s response was overwhelming. Over 400 participants came to have their household items repaired by a crew of repair volunteers, called “fixers.” Ten City of Eugene staff and contractors coordinated and presented the events. More than fifty volunteers shared their repair, event coordination, data collection, customer service and other skills, contributing to the community’s overwhelmingly positive response to the events.

In 2017, the City of Eugene hosted three Fix-It Fairs and took steps to measure if attendance at the events correlated with potential product life extension through repair. To measure the effectiveness of the events, the City surveyed both Fair participants and the repair professionals that repaired items at the Fairs.