This past January, many of us were heartbroken to hear of the loss of a Good Work powerhouse: our friend, John Wackman. John grew up in Eastchester, NY, and went to school in North Carolina, Virginia and Wisconsin. His worklife took him to New Hampshire, Connecticut and New York City, and he describes his 25 years in the television industry as “a very good time”. In 2012, John came to the Hudson Valley, and immediately fell in love with the people he met. He joined the Rosendale Theatre programming committee, started talking about the Repair Cafe idea from Amsterdam, and was invited to join the Sustainable Hudson Valley board. John was the Program Manager for Solarize Hudson Valley from 2015 – 2018. Dedicated to seeing their “experiment in repair culture” thrive, John acted as communicator, coordinator and cheerleader. John started the first Repair Cafe in New York. His dedication, enthusiasm, and success inspired others to launch Repair Cafe events in their communities. Pre-pandemic, roughly 25 Repair Cafes were active in 10 counties in the HV and Catskills, all locally organized, creative and socially vibrant. During his time as a Good Work Fellow John shared that he loved music, his book group guys, the region’s rivers and valleys. He expressed his awe of his grown son and daughter. And he expressed his awe of how everything now is connected to our profound climate-changing world.
On this episode of the Good Work Hour, join Micah and Terri as we remember and celebrate John with several guests who knew and worked with him in various capacities: Noa Jones, founder of the Middle Way School of the HV in Saugerties; Andrew Willner, a leader, organizer, and advocate for the New York/New Jersey Bioregion for the past 25 years & currently Executive Director of the Center for Post Carbon Logistics, and a principal of the consulting firm, Sustainability Solutions; and Elizabeth Knight, Organizer Repair Cafe & the Too Good To Toss Free Community Swap, and John’s co-author on the book "Repair Revolution", which was published in October 2020.
Resources:
Repair Revolution: How Fixers are Transforming Our Throwaway Culture by John Wackman & Elizabeth Knight (available or by request at your local book store; also available at indiebound.org and bookshop.org)
We love you, John.