West LA handyman fixes for smiles and the environment at Repair Café events

A 1940s-era telephone that can't make a call, a sewing machine that can't advance the thread, thanks to volunteers with a Santa Monica Repair Café, items once broken are now back in action.

It's eco-friendly, a money saver, and "Fix-it Man" David Duran says he just likes to see people smile.

"'Magic David,' I call him because he can fix anything, recycler Quynh Nguyen said.

It didn't take long before Duran got the machine stitching again, and that vintage phone dialing again.

"I really, really enjoy fixing things," Duran said, as he makes repair stops in his Jeep, complete with a personalized "FIXIT MN" plate.

What makes Duran truly special is how many repairs he gives away for free. Almost every Saturday, you can find him working quietly at one of the Repair Cafés all over Southern California, joined by dozens of volunteers offering all kinds of free services.

Repair tickets are issued, with each item tracked to its owner, and when complete, notes are shared. "So, this person has a broken vase, this one has a doll, this one has a lunchbox that needs to be repaired," Michelle Weiner, Repair Café organizer, said as she shared tickets from the Santa Monica event.

Items repaired are spared from a landfill, and that's important. In LA County, the average person generates 3.2 pounds of trash a day, and landfills are projected to reach capacity within 13 years.

As buried trash breaks down, microplastics can leach into the water, and methane gases can pollute the air.

"So the idea is that nothing goes to waste, everything gets used and reused instead of going into the trash," Weiner said.

While waiting for repairs, visitors can enjoy a knitting lesson. "This is a great collaborative effort," Dan Miner, Repair Café handyman, said. He wasn't able to save the fan he was working on, "so we're going to put this in the recycle pile."

As Duran wraps up his final fix of the day, he's looking forward to the upcoming Repair Café events. "Culver City, I go to Burbank, Pasadena, Arcadia, Long Beach." In between, he'll make house calls for visitors he couldn't help on the spot.

"I love the challenge of trying to figure out what's wrong," he said. But what Duran likes even more is contributing to a cleaner planet and making people happy.