What is a Repair Café?

Repair Cafes are free pop-up events where local people bring in their broken and damaged belongings and local volunteer experts do their best to repair them. Repair Cafés are a growing movement and in 2022 Repair Café Aotearoa New Zealand (RCANZ) was created with the aim to develop and connect, inform, and support the network of people and organisations around New Zealand who organise community repair events in. There are currently around 40 Repair Cafés (and rising) in Aotearoa New Zealand.

About Palmerston North Repair Café.

Palmerston North Repair Café  launched in September 2022 at Te Manawa Museum with the support of Environment Network Manawatū, PNCC, MENZSHED, SuperGrans Manawatū and other community organisations. The café  works in cooperation with local businesses with the overall goal of improving accessibility to and understanding of repair, repurpose and recycling opportunities within the city as a means of reducing waste and engendering local resilience, connection, and cohesion.

Depending on the skills and passions of Repair Café volunteers on the day, items mended and saved from landfill include clothing, toys, household items, bikes, books, wooden items, jewellery, computers and more. We are always looking for more volunteers with specialist skills to help us repairing.

This is a free event, but we ask for a koha/donation for repairs.

We will have a café with food and drinks available for a koha

Important Dates:

The Repair Café will take place on the last Saturday of each month from 9:00am-12:00pm, last mend at 11:30am. 

Palmerston North Community Leisure Centre, 569 Ferguson Street, Palmerston North.

Follow us on Facebook to keep up to date!

Contact Us

Contact The Repair Cafe co-ordinator, Siobhan Hirst with any questions on kai.security@enm.org.nz or 0275411324