Repair Café at St Mary’s, Woodford

30 June 2025

The café is free, and people can take along items for repair. Expert volunteers carry out the repairs, but they also share their expertise with the local community – teaching people a range of skills from electrical repairs, clothing repairs and alterations and bicycle maintenance. The aim is to reduce waste and create a culture of repair and sustainability which will have a positive impact on our environment.

Alongside the repairs, the café hosts a variety of workshops, and is a public electrical recycling point courtesy of the East London Waste Authority. The local community can also bring along other difficult to recycle items.

Viveca Dutt, Churchwarden at St Mary’s, Woodford says:

“We partner with the South Woodford Society, and community groups to run a completely free Repair Café. We knew that so many items needlessly go to waste because they are too expensive or difficult for commercial repair.

“Held every quarter, the repair café offers electrical, sewing, and bike repairs, and since we started, people have volunteered as mechanical, watch, spectacle repairers and jewellery cleaners, and we have spanned the generations, with people of all ages coming along.

“Our café also hosts toy and seed swaps, and workshops, including sewing and drawing with homemade inks. It’s extremely popular and we often have queues before we open. Our repairers have fixed lamps, toasters, watches, hoovers, trousers, shirts, jumpers and they’ve even brought bikes back to safe use. One recent café rescued items from landfill worth 1593KG of CO2 emissions.

“If other churches are thinking about running a repair café, go for it: you will not lack customers and there is a lot of support available for new events.”

 

This article has been taken from the latest edition of WePray, our quarterly prayer diary which brings together our Cycle of Prayer and stories from across our Diocese.