Repair Café North Carolina
North Carolina
A charity running free community repair events across nine North Carolina areas, with a strand called Stitching Stuffies aimed at teaching children to mend their own soft toys and take them home the same day. Free, volunteer-run, and the right answer for a split seam on something modern rather than anything old or valuable.
Getting hold of them
- info@repaircafenc.org
- Their own site
- You can walk in at
Email is the way in. They do not take cold calls.
If it gets lost
Not stated
This is a blank on their page, not an answer from them. We have never asked anybody in this trade the question. Of the 185 businesses we have read, 4 have written anything down about losing an item: 2 say it is insured, 2 say the risk is yours. The other 181 are silent, and silence is not a policy either way.
If you would rather not have to phrase it
“Before I send it, can I ask what happens if it gets lost or damaged while it’s with you? I’m not trying to catch you out, it just can’t be replaced. Whatever the answer is, could you put it in an email so I’ve got it in writing?”
“No, we don’t cover it” is a fine answer to get. It tells you to insure the mail yourself for the full amount, both ways.
If it is lost or damaged
Their website does not say what happens if your item is lost or damaged while they have it.
Ask before you post anything you could not replace. Only four of the businesses we hold publish an answer to this.
What they take on
- Mending and seams
- Restuffing
- Eyes and noses
What they won’t do
The part every other directory leaves out. None of this is a criticism. It is how you avoid three wasted weeks.
- Repairs only, no cleaning
- Won't accept anything by mail until they give you a date to send it
Their exact words on what they refuse
Quoted from their own pages, unedited, because a paraphrase of a refusal is the kind of thing you find out was wrong three weeks in.
- “We will have tools and experienced people who can work with you to find the best way to repair your item.”
Their published prices
- Everythingfrom $0
Getting it there
- Drop-off only, no mail
- You can bring it in
- Works on site. It does not go away with them.
Money
- Fixed menu of prices, so you know before you send it
Anything else they say
- Free, and it stays in the room: nothing is taken away, and you do the work alongside a coach.
- Not for anything jointed, antique or irreplaceable. These are volunteers with sewing machines, and they say so themselves.