08/23/2026
Repairing instead of buying new? Excellent!
Department on Aging to offer unique café
By Beth Lawrence
The Department on Aging is opening a café. Patrons won’t be sitting with a latte, a book, and a biscotti, but they will receive a service - getting small appliances fixed at the Repair Café.
Department Director Jamie Davis announced at a recent county commissioners’ meeting that the new café is one of several services Aging is offering.
Davis is partnering with WNC Repair Café of Asheville to bring the fixit services to Jackson residents.
The group specializes in bygone fix-it skills.
“They are just a group of volunteers that try to harken back to days when you could go and just get items repaired - smaller items like your toasters, your bicycles, your lawn mowers, small engines,” Davis said. “They have a group of people that know how to tinker and fix things. They’re not going to take your car apart and put it back together, but they might be able to change the spark plug in your w**d eater. Things that some people might not be able to do.”
The idea was the suggestion of two of the Department on Aging’s clients who had taken items to other WNC Repair Café events.
It appealed to Davis because he is a “tinkerer,” who loves to repair what can be fixed instead of buying new.
Volunteers will repair household appliances for free unless parts are needed. If a repair requires parts, the owner pays the cost of those, and the item will be fixed at the following event. The group does not repair modern electronics, but some of their events include sewing and mending services.
The Department’s clients are excited to have the opportunity offered at their center.
The service is available to anyone, not just Aging’s participants.
Davis hopes to have sessions one Saturday a month; the first will be held on Oct. 17.
The events will only be available at the Sylva location.
Having a place to repair items rather than dispose of them is important because fixit shops typically don’t exist anymore.
“We are living in an age of planned obsolescence,” Davis said. “People design things to be cheaper to just replace rather than to go pay somebody tech fees. If you take something somewhere and somebody charges you $30 an hour to fix a $20 blender. You’re really going backwards, but if you can have somebody that’s volunteering to fix it for the price of the parts, that’s not so bad.”
The cafés help solve another greater problem too.
Repairing items as much as possible also reduces waste and keeps junk out of landfills.
“We’ve got a finite amount of space and a finite amount of resources,” Davis said.
The Repair Café will be open from 10 a.m. – 2 p.m.
Davis advises anyone with questions, especially regarding whether large appliances can be repaired, to give him a call before bringing a washer or dryer to the event. He will attempt to get their question answered ahead of time.
The group is also hosting an event nearby at Haywood Community College on Sept. 19.
To learn more, visit facebook.com/WNCRepairCafe/.
The Department on Aging is located at 100 County Services Park Road, Sylva. For questions, call 586-5494.
PHOTO CAPTION: A broken toaster could probably be fixed by someone at the cafe.
