This story was updated on Mar. 30, 2026 at 3:21p.m.

At a Repair Café, broken belongings aren’t headed for the trash. The Material Exchange, a student-run group that promotes sustainability through the barter and reuse of materials, launched its first Repair Café on March 6, inviting students to bring in damaged goods and learn how to fix them.

Repair Cafés are community spaces where people can bring in broken goods and receive fixing services for them, an idea that came from Dutch environmentalist and journalist Martine Postma. Parsons’ Repair Café is now listed on the official Repair Café tracker.

The Material Exchange is located at Parsons East Building on the second floor and is open 10 a.m. to- 12 p.m. Monday through Wednesday and 4-6 p.m. Monday through Friday.

One of the students behind the Repair Café hopes the project tackles a larger problem within design education: waste. Saina Udayagiri, a fourth-year product design major at Parsons School of Design and one of the organizers of the Repair Café, told The New School Free Press that the group’s goal is to reduce the amount of discarded materials produced at design schools. At the Material Exchange, students trade materials for points that are then used to get materials back from the exchange.

Run entirely by students and volunteers, Material Exchange aims to reduce the production of material waste, and to build a robust community. Attendees at the Repair Café earlier this month ranged from students to faculty to non-New School affiliates.

The idea to bring a repair café to Parsons was proposed by part-time faculty member Timothy Furstnau, who teaches integrated design. Having previously co-organized multiple repair cafés in upstate New York, Furstnau believed the model could benefit the New School community. Furstnau said, “There’s a problem with design — that it’s so focused on innovation and we neglect things that need maintenance and repair and care … I’d say this is a part of a sort of counter education or improving of education at Parsons — to really focus on maintenance and care.”

Student volunteers at the Material Exchange loved these sentiments and set their minds to creating Parsons’ very first Repair Café. Another student organizer, Ani Georgiades, a third-year integrated design major at Parsons, said “[we’re] trying to build a community of people who want to go back to just fixing stuff, reusing stuff, instead of always needing [things] to be new.”

Oftentimes, initiatives claiming sustainability are focused around consumption — like thrifting — and can produce even more waste. The Repair Café allowed for the amount of waste produced to be minimized as much as possible through extending the life of existing objects. e Repair Café was held in room M104 of the Sheila C. Johnson Design Center.

Walking into the café immediately created a welcoming energy for visitors. The most popular table at the café was the sewing table. One student had his jeans repaired, another guest had his sweater customized, and student volunteers continued to craft in the down time when there was no one requiring repair.

The student who had his jeans repaired, Finn Fielding, a first-year undeclared student at Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts, said, “It was really [homey] and it was a really fun event. There was a lot of good company and it was just a lot of people, you know, doing their art and just like helping the community.”

Inside the Repair Café, broken items became opportunities to learn. Attendees brought in objects ranging from torn clothing to malfunctioning electronics, which volunteers helped repair using skills like woodworking, sewing, adhesives, mechanical work, and instrument repair.  But the goal went beyond simply fixing things. As students worked alongside volunteers, they also learned practical skills, rooted in creativity and resourcefulness. 

Furstnau said, “In addition to the repair of physical items, in the process, the knowledge that is created and hopefully passed between people … is really important, especially in the context of teaching people.” A key element of sustainability is ensuring people have the knowledge to continue these waste reducing mindsets and practices.

Students, and student volunteers interacting while various articles of clothing receive repair, courtesy of The Material Exchange.

For organizers, the Repair Café was as much about community as it was about fixing objects. When asked about the benefits of the Repair Café, Udayagiri said, “It’s a great place to build a community where we’re able to give back a little bit.”

Georgiades shared a story of when she was able to repair a sewing machine for her local high school’s theater, which helped speed up the process of their theater production, because they were previously sewing everything by hand. The school said they were unable to afford a new sewing machine. So Georgiades decided to take a look at the machine herself and see if she could fix it. Through a little tinkering Georgiades was able to fix the sewing machine and allow for the production to accelerate, which is exactly the kind of do-it-yourself attitude the Repair Café cultivates.

Students looking to get involved with the Material Exchange, by either volunteering or seeking repair services, can visit their website and check out their instagram to stay up to date with their latest events.