“Women cannot just go out and get on the job training.”

Reynard Way, famed for its holesale hosiery, its petite print shop. Its flying carpet boutique: Reynard Way, named “State” in stately downtown, renamed “Goldfinch” as it flies up to Bird Hill; Reynard Way, unashamedly zoned for the unorthodox: Reynard the whimsical Way proudly presents a new tenant and a new idea. Just after the sign changes from “State Street” to “Reynard Way”, accidentally tucked between auto repair and typewriter repair, lives Project Repair. Its business is home repair, but it is not a business.

"Repair work is like constantly figuring out puzzles.”

Project Repair was an idea: presented by the Companionship, a group experienced in community work, funded first by United Way and then co-funded by Revenue Sharing, made tangible by buildings, tools, teachers, students, staff, paper, telephones. The ingredients sound familiar. But Repair has been unique since November 6. 1972 when it began offering classes in home repair to women poised toward self-employment. From here and there came the students: women whose fathers, brothers, husbands had taught them a tantalizingly little skill: women who could not get into the union and could not afford a commercial trade school; women who had never before considered learning a skilled trade. That first year, a few women came to be trained as self-employed handy-women. For others, whose objective was self-maintenance rather than vocation, short-term do-it-yourself-type courses we re provided. This year, many more applicants are specifying interest in the vocational course, and many of those who enroll in a short class reapply for career training. All Repair classes cover topics in electrical, plumbing, and carpentry repair. Tuition is set non-profitly at no more than the particular student can afford.

The buildings of Project Repair. temporary tin, pimply stucco, freshly-painted clapboard, mark the growth of the program. The original structure, a housey storefront, divided naturally into front office and rear shop. Having been, in the memory of the Reynard Way mailman, first massage parlor and then janitorial business, it provided the genes for trade and service. This auspicious parentage, the neighboring repair businesses, plus the encyclopedic disrepair of the joint (potential practice ground for student handy-women) makes for an apt setting. The first year, the shop area was expanded: this year, the interiors arc being improved. Where a retired storefront once stagnated, repair projects now erupt on the tight triangle of lawn.

The classroom is the shop, with Repair-built drafting table. Repair-built sawhorses, Repair-installed circuits. Repaired toilets (one of them doubles as a phone booth. It was the only choice for privacy and quiet conversation.) and Repair-bought tools. Tools. The prosthetic ability to make a woman’s hand sharp for cutting, heavy for hammering, strong for wrenching: tools, for fixing pipes, making shelves, replacing switches: tools, stools, and safety rules, supplied by the Project, shared by the students. Repair offers a well-stocked shop and teaches proper handling and maintenance of tools.

Teaching does not confine itself to the premises at Project Repair. Milton Strouse, vocational course instructor and father of three, charming in his powder blue work shirt and loosely tailored trousers, explains, “In class I teach them the best way: on the job, they’re correcting someone else's mistakes.” Improvisation. The shop is the place for learning code and getting the feel of the tools. “On the jobs” are contributed by low-income and or generous people around town who do not mind a whole classroom of plumbers learning in their bathrooms.

Milt does not pretend that his women students are as strong as a class of men. “Girls are handed dolls: boys are given hammers to play with. Now a girl isn’t going to build up muscle carrying dolls around.” So he teaches leverage added to strength. “With leverage you can move the world if you just get back far enough.”

Milt teaches his students one thing: they teach him another. In the middle of a narrative, “We’re doing this for the landlord, uh. the landlady, — land person — see how they’ve brainwashed me!" He is quick to notice and laugh at his new vocabulary.

The success of Milt's teaching methods will be determined in part, by how quickly he is replaced. Now, at the beginning, it is difficult to find women qualified to teach home repair skills. As the Project spreads interest and knowledge in this field, however, more women industrial arts instructors will become available.

The head teacher, Sue Metzger, is a handywoman turned teacher coaxed administrator who is eager to get back to the repair work itself. ("Lookat this nice tile!" With a tradesperson’s eye, she pays more attention to the walls of the restaurant than to the food.) Sue has been a carpenter ever since only recently when she happened to help add a room to her home. She discovered a love for the work. Subsequently looking for training in carpentry, she found she was too old (over 31) to enter an apprenticeship program, and wound up in a year long, 20 hour a week cabinetmaking class at City College — the only woman in the class. “Women cannot just go out and get on the job training.” She knows from her own experiences the need that Project Repair fills. Sue joined the program during its first weeks, as teacher of a short class. Perhaps because of her legal background (“lawyers specialize in applying method ”), perhaps because of her “recent ignorance" in home repair, she emerged a natural teacher. This year, as Supervisor of Workshop and Training, she is responsible for the instructors and students of the Project.

Broader supervisory responsibility for the Project belongs to Joyce Nower. Joyce, the Director, was the first, and long the only, staff member. In selecting the tangibles of Repair, whether teachers, students, application forms, locations, Joyce chooses supportive, positive elements which will enhance a woman’s confidence. Joyce carries her talents as poet, activist, teacher, speaker, organizer, observer of the status of women to the front office and bathes the air in her sense of humor. As is typical of alternative agencies, she performs with gusto both administrative duties and clerical drudgery. No one associated with the Project is remote. Students attend Board meetings: the head teacher cleans the toilets: the secretary expresses her opinions.

The students of Project Repair vary greatly in age, background, motivation — from teenager to do-it-yourselfer to mother to middleager to vocational trainee to social security recipient.. Maulee enjoys the work of the handywoman and likes to imagine herself working part time and choosing her own hours. Vicki views old houses as an extension of antiques and the repair of one as artistic as the renovation of the other. Joyce M. wants to teach. She values the Repair experience for the new way of thinking she is learning:

“I can learn well without understanding. but that’s memorization. Repair work is like constantly figuring out puzzles,” and for the confidence she is gaining: “enough not to feel intimidated about taking things apart.” Judy considers her Repair course the ideal learning situation, with on-the-job training, lacking at college courses, and a faster more comprehensive method than that of the apprenticeship programs.

Non-business is good at Project Repair and getting busier. An afternoon vocational class (places still available) will begin in a couple of weeks. The spring series of short classes will start next month. Thoughts for the future of the Project turn towards adding specialist classes to the general home repair curriculum, and toward the establishment of a cooperative business among vocational program graduates.

On Reynard Way, the street that is a neighborhood unto itself, #263l is evolving its own brand of neighbourliness. Ideas and inquiries are welcome.