Hello all! In the last newsletter, we announced that the April Cafe would be at Oakton Library. Unfortunately since then, we have had to change locations. The good news is, we were able to keep the same date and our regular time slot, 10:30am-12:30pm, and we get to visit a new location. If you know anyone interested in attending our event this month, please make sure they know it’s at Kings Park Library instead. We will return to Oakton as soon as we can!

Next Repair Café: 10:30am-12:30pm Saturday, April 11th

Kings Park Library

Our next event will be in Burke, at Kings Park Library, at the corner of Burke Lake Road and Rolling Road.

Here’s the address:

9000 Burke Lake Road
Burke, VA, 22015

For transit: This location is served by WMATA MetroBus F28 and F29, and Fairfax Connector #306.

By car: This location has a parking lot around the building, possibly best accessible from Burke Lake Road, but you can access from Rolling Road as well.

Doors open at 10:30. We close to new knife sharpening at 12:00pm, and we close to all new repairs at 12:30pm. This helps us make sure we can clean up the library’s room before we leave.

Also, we have previously said we can’t sharpen serrated knives. That’s no longer true! Knife sharpening is still limited to 3 blades per visitor, to make sure we can serve everybody, but we now have capacity for serrated knives.

Next up: May, June Cafés

Saturday, May 9th, 10:30am-12:30pm @ Lorton Library

9520 Richmond Highway
Lorton, VA, 22079-2124

Saturday, June 6th, 10:30am-12:30pm @ Great Falls Library

9830 Georgetown Pike
Great Falls, VA, 22066-2634

Early Voting open now!

After Repair Cafe, I’m going to be joining some friends to go vote early in the special election. April 11th will be the first date of Saturday early voting hours, and polling locations across the county will be open that day. For Fairfax County, you can view the list of early voting locations here: https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/elections/early-voting

Here’s some information for a few other nearby localities:

• Arlington: https://vote.arlingtonva.gov/Early-Voting

• Alexandria: https://www.alexandriava.gov/elections/key-early-voting-dates-deadlines

• City of Falls Church: https://www.fallschurchva.gov/1970/Early-Voting

• City of Fairfax: https://www.fairfaxva.gov/Government/Elections/Election-Calendar

• Prince William: https://www.pwcvotes.org/earlyvoting

In Virginia, if you aren’t registered to vote, but you are eligible for registration, you can vote on a provisional ballot on-site when you go to the polling place. You can view more information about this here: https://www.elections.virginia.gov/registration/

Saturday voting happens to work best for me based on my schedule, but the early voting locations will also be open on weekdays if those are better for you. Our April host library, Kings Park, is not an early voting location, but it is close to Burke Centre Library, West Springfield Government Center, and the Mason Government Center (limited parking due to construction). Fairfax County voters can visit any County early voting site prior to election day, even if it’s not in your normal district.

If you have any questions about the process, every poll worker I’ve worked with has been exceptional in answering all my questions.

That’s all for now - happy spring, and I hope you get to enjoy the beautiful weather we’re having!

Ari Nicholas

Fairfax County Repair Cafe