Repair Café builds human connections

As many people know by now, a Repair Café is a community gathering space where people bring their beloved, but broken, items to be fixed, for free, by a skilled volunteer. The idea is to keep “useful things useful and out of the landfill” while sharing skills and strengthening community connections. But the initiative does more than fix broken items, it helps bring communities together.

This is the story of a meaningful repair experience that took place between a Warwick Repair Café coach and a teenage boy on the autism spectrum.

Fred Rossi is a retired auto parts/machine shop owner and volunteer firefighter who has shared his hands-on skills at the blade-sharpening station since 2018. He and his fellow team members use whetstones and files to sharpen knives, scissors, and garden tools.

Wyatt Dul, a 15-year-old at Warwick High school who is on the Autism spectrum, met Rossi when the boy’s grandmother, Sharon Webster, brought him to Warwick’s Repair Café.

Rossi, who always explains what he’s doing while he works, noticed Wyatt’s interest and invited the boy to sit beside him to better observe the techniques. That brief encounter led to Rossi giving Wyatt knife-sharpening lessons over one summer.

“When I first sat with Mr. Fred I was really interested,’ Dul said. “When he told me he would teach me I was happy. Mr. Fred is a good teacher. After he showed me, I thought I’d be doing this for my family. After my lessons with Mr. Fred, my neighbor, Mr. Sebastian, gave me his knives to sharpen. He showed them to his friends in New York City. He told me they would pay me to sharpen their knives. I was amazed and surprised.”

Webster said she was thrilled at the change in a bored teenager who spent too much time alone because he wasn’t interested in the same kinds of sports and other social activities as his two brothers.

“Wyatt was often ignored at school and sometimes ostracized because he’s different,” Webster said. “But now, that difference includes a sense of independence, purpose, and pride in acquiring a life-skill that few adults, much less teens, can claim. Thanks to Fred’s skills, time, love, and the Repair Café, Wyatt has a skill that he can pass down to another generation someday!”

The Repair Café meets the third Saturday of every odd month. The group’s next event takes place from 10 a.m to 2 p.m. on Saturday, May 18, at the Warwick Senior Center, located at 132 King’s Highway behind Town Hall in Warwick.