Share, Care for and Repair Your Items
We host a number of swaps to help you share your unused or gently used consumable items. Look for our quarterly plant swap, weekly hardware swap, and weekly art supply swap on our calendar.
We do not accept certain items like old paint that need to be disposed of elsewhere. Instead, learn where to recycle them with the recyclopedia, and next time you buy do so with thought to the end of life of your product. We also do not accept large amounts of quality items; those are better to give to Habitat for Humanity, Goodwill or other local schools and nonprofits.
Care for items you want to keep with our repair cafes and repair kits in our library of things.
What is a Repair Café?
A Repair Cafe is a community-based initiative designed to encourage people to repair broken or damaged items rather than discarding them. These events are typically hosted in libraries, community centers, or local spaces and bring together skilled volunteers (repair experts) and community members who need help fixing everyday items.
What is the goal of a Repair Cafe?
The goal of a Repair Café is to promote sustainability, reduce waste, and foster a sense of community by encouraging people to repair, reuse, and learn new skills.
Curtis Memorial Library has partnered with a few other organizations to bring a repair cafe to your community! Come to an upcoming Repair Cafe, where our expert volunteers can fix your everyday items and keep them out of the landfill. They’ll even show you how to do it yourself!
We can help with:
- Electronics & computers
- Clothing and leather goods
- Small appliances & lamps
- Wooden furniture
- Knife Sharpening
- 3D-printed repairs
Need help starting your own local repair group? You may want to check out:
- The Belfast, Maine Repair Group
- The South Portland Repair Cafe
- The Annual Repair Summit organized by repair economy washington.
- iFixit Fix It Manuals
- Repair Clinic Help
- Repair Cafe International
We participate in the LOT Mutual Aid Group, Sustainable Libraries Initiative and MECollab to improve our offerings and share our lessons learned. Join us! Both the LOT Mutual Aid Group and MECollab have recorded repair presentations you can access.
