On a recent afternoon, Kettering Parks and Recreation's annual EcoFEST is in full-swing.
The grounds at Fraze Pavilion are lined with information and activity booths of the many agencies and organizations taking part in the well-attended event. The vendors offer information on beekeeping, renewable energy, wetland and river conservation, and a host of other environmental and sustainability subjects.
There are also activity booths offering yoga with animals, workshops on recycling and composting, gardening and other experiences.
At the Washington-Centerville Library Fix-it Clinic, located near the music venue entrance, several volunteers survey a dehumidifier brought in by one of the attendees who said the appliance had stopped pulling moisture into the tank.
Volunteer Emilio Frattaruolo takes the lead on the evaluation.
"We're just making sure that everything that's supposed to work does work," he said. "So we checked the tank switch. The fans work and the compressor seems to be kicking on when it's supposed to, so now we're going to let it sit and see if we can pull some moisture out of the air. It's not super humid today, but hopefully we'll get something."
Patrick Arehart is also serving as a fix-it coach for the day. He said it's not always about fixing things but about diagnosing the problem.
"For example," he said, "a printer came in and they're like, 'I've looked it all over [and] I can't find the paper jam.' Well, I just turned it up sideways and looked at it and there was piece of paper in there and I [fixed it] using a long pair of tweezers. And the lady was like, 'Oh, I can't believe it was that simple.' I mean, she'd been messing with it for months. So it's the diagnostic that's fun."
At the front of the Fix-it Clinic booth is Lauren Rura, who's fielding questions from EcoFEST attendees who stop by. A lot of the information she provides has to do with what they can fix, and what they can't fix because of liability or safety issues.
Rura, an adult services manager with the Washington-Centerville Library, said it’s their first time at EcoFEST. They typically hold quarterly clinics at the library and they’re pretty well-attended.
She said they have really good success with lamps and with sewing machines.
"We get a lot of those, children's toys, things that [involve] simple sewing. There's a lot that we will work on and a lot we have learned not to work on," Rura said.
As for their first appearance at EcoFEST, she said they've had a lot of interaction with the attendees.
"We've had over 150 people stop by our booth and just talk about [our] initiatives," she said. "Not as many knew to bring items with them, I think, so that's a detriment, but everything that's been brought so far to fix, we've repaired. So we have a 100% success rate so far."
Rura explained that the program is an environmental initiative.
"So we do weigh everything that comes in and we report at the end of the year how much we kept out of the landfill by fixing it," she said. "It has become a single-use environment, really, and this is helping to give new life to things, repurpose it, and it's all done by volunteers. These people aren't getting paid. They are just passionate about what they do, and they donate their time for us for this."
"It has become a single-use environment, really, and this is helping to give new life to things, repurpose it, and it's all done by volunteers."
Eventually, the dehumidifier's owner, Rex Easley of Centerville, makes his way back to the fit-it booth for an update on the appliance.
"My wife noticed the opportunity, because we're kind of a library of folks," he said. "This has been sitting in the basement for months and we were thinking: Get rid of it, not get rid it? I couldn't get it to run right, so I thought, eh, it'd be kind of fun to take it up [here] and just see what people think."
Emilio Frattaruolo tells him there's nothing really wrong with the dehumidifier and it's likely he'll have better results operating the machine in "comfort mode."
Easley welcomes the advice, picks up the appliance and heads out into the EcoFEST crowd, then back home to see if the new setting will help.
If all goes well there, the library will have kept one less item from ending up in a local landfill.
