Ever wanted to learn how to hem a pair of jeans? Fix a bike? Patch a tire? Drain the fluids from an old car so that it’s ready for disposal? The Wrangell Cooperative Association’s upcoming fix-it clinic will help the community learn to maintain and repair household items, promoting sustainability and reducing waste. The event will be held at the covered basketball court on Monday, Aug. 28, from noon to 4 p.m.
Marilyn Mork will be available to share her sewing and mending expertise, particularly hemming and attaching loose buttons. She plans to bring in sewing supplies and pairs of jeans from the thrift store so that she can demonstrate these techniques and help clinic attendees practice.
Having basic mending skills is both fiscally and environmentally friendly, she explained. “You spend a lot of money on clothes,” she said, and it doesn’t always make sense to buy replacement pieces, especially if it’s just a broken zipper on a $100 pair of jeans.
Mork has been fixing up and altering her own clothes since middle school, when a home economics class first introduced her to the craft.
“That’s when I really started to like sewing,” she recalled. “In school, you learn the basics and after that, I started doing things on my own.” Aside from mending her own clothes, she uses her alteration skills to help brides achieve the perfect fit for their wedding dresses and high schoolers put the finishing touches on their prom looks.
Georgia Selfridge never received any formal automotive training, but growing up in Meyers Chuck, “you just start digging in,” she said. “When you’re out in the middle of God knows where, it’s not like you can cry for help.”
At the fix-it clinic, she and her partner Joe Gatrell are going to teach people how to remove the fluids from their cars. She got the idea for this workshop at a borough meeting about code enforcement, where borough officials discussed how to get rid of the island’s accumulated derelict vehicles.
Channel Construction will barge old vehicles south to a recycling depot, but only if the fluids are fully drained and “a lot of people just don’t do it right,” she said. It always occurs to people to drain the oil, but that’s not all they have to do — there is also coolant, transmission fluid, brake fluid, power steering fluid, windshield wiper fluid and more.
Selfridge volunteered for the clinic because she wants to give community members the tools to beautify their town. “A lot of people complain about a lot of things, but they don’t have the opportunity to help,” she said. “We’ll have a car and we’ll be really clear and lay out where everything is at.” That way, people with derelict vehicles can have them removed without paying $200 or so to have their car drained by a professional.
John Hurst of Island Tire Repair will also be sharing his automotive expertise, but will focus specifically on tires. From Hurst, clinic attendees can learn how to jack up a vehicle properly, remove a tire, then find and plug a leak. The temporary fix should work well enough to get the car back to town and into a shop, where it can receive a more permanent tire patch.
“It would be really bad to be stranded 15, 20 miles out the road,” Hurst said. “If you have the tools to do it, which most people do actually have these tools in their vehicles, it’s very easily doable.”
Hurst acquired his automotive skills when he was a kid, helping his dad work on cars. It’s something you learn through experience, he explained.
Like Hurst, Mitchell Ludwig also developed his repair skills when he was young, though his focus was bikes, not cars. Ludwig will teach the clinic’s cyclists how to create and use their own bike repair kit to take with them on rides.
“As you’re riding a bike, always keep a little tool kit on you,” Ludwig said. Chains, pedals, cranks, brakes, gears and derailleurs can all run into issues, which can be dangerous if a rider is many miles out the road or doesn’t have service.
Ludwig also plans to point attendees to online resources on bike repair that can help answer any questions he doesn’t cover in the workshop. He is leaving the island temporarily in early September, but when he returns, he plans to provide bike maintenance services in Wrangell.
WCA Tl’átk – Earth Branch coordinator Alex Angerman is also on the lookout for volunteers who know how to do basic electrical work or can patch up air mattresses, pool floaties and paddle boards. If any of these skills are within your area of expertise, reach out to her at igapcoord.wca@gmail.com or 907-874-4304 extension 101.
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