The Fixer Fair’s philosophy is “Don’t throw it away – fix it!”

By Courtney Young

What’s in your junk drawer? Is it a wrench that you have no idea what to do with? A screwdriver that your mother bought you when you moved into your first place that you’ve never used? What about that old, broken Walkman that nostalgia keeps beckoning you to put back together?

Instances like this are exactly what the Fixer Fair was made for. Nick-nacks, gadgets and technical equipment, ranging from office supplies, to wires, chargers, and of course our token wrenches and screwdrivers sit in buckets on tables available for anyone to come and use. Volunteers ready to help assist line Somerville’s Union Square as residents and visitors come and bring everything from mirrors that need a bit of care, to shelves missing a bolt, to fans and cellphones that have stopped running.

Hosted by founder of Parts and Crafts, Will Macfarlane, and Dina Gjertsen, who runs the Somerville Tool Library, the Fixer Fair invites all residents of Somerville to come and not just fix what they have that may be broken, but also learn how to build things. Parts and Crafts, by mission, is a makerspace for kids that encourages the exploration of arts and sciences. This mission emphasizes a kinesthetic learning style, but offers numerous types of learning styles for all audiences.

“The things I want for Somerville are the same things that I want for Parts and Crafts,” Macfarlane states. “I want them both to be places that feel welcoming and inclusive, and for them to continue to be more so as time goes on. Somerville is an amazing city, and it’s amazing in large part because of the richness and variety of the community, the people, and the things that people are doing. As the city grows and changes I hope that it can keep this vibrancy and diversity, and that it can somehow continue to be a place where people from all backgrounds can afford to live and feel welcome.”

A grant from the Somerville Arts Council [SAC] allows Parts and Crafts to come and assist people in developing a new knowledge of how to work with what they have; to discourage replacement of objects that still have value and function, just need a bit of fixing.

Parts and Crafts hosted the event, but Nina Eicherman, Special Events Manager of the SAC, states that anyone can apply to use Union Square during the Arts Union Series in Somerville. “People can always come to the SAC with ideas for events. We really enjoy hosting events that are wanted and needed in the community,” Eicherman explains. “We do all the logistics: the permitting, the publicity, shutting down streets, getting tables and chairs, and all around support whatever event that we’re hosting as part of the Series.”

“It’s very easy for structures and organizations designed for young people to be end up very rigidly programmed and structured but when we create these structures and schedules for them we deprive kids of the opportunity to create their own. I wanted to make a space where kids could be in charge of themselves and their own time and where grown-ups could share their enthusiasms and passions,” Macfarlane adds.

“This event was inspired by repair cafes and fix-it-clinics, and the fact that we all have tools that we are not using,” Gjertsen says. The fouth annual Fixer Fair was an effort to change the relationship that people have with their things. “We have an impulse to teach people to be self-reliant, and not just go buy something brand new, just because the one they have stopped working,” Gjertsen states.

There are tools everywhere; the wrench in the closet, the screwdriver in the junk drawer, some we have forgotten we own, or we don’t notice are tools. Parts and Crafts puts these tools to good use by putting them in the hands of those interested in learning how to fix, build, and create.

Some of the summer camp programs include Girls Invention Week, Music and Mechanisms, Science and Spectacle, Imaginary Worlds, Life: Natural and Artificial, as well as open shop five days a week. For more information on the sliding-scale summer programs’ tuition fees and descriptions, you can view their website at www.partsandcrafts.org. If you are interested in becoming a volunteer to help put things back together, or support the movement that Parts and Crafts is, you can send an email to contact@partsandcrafts.org.