Cafe no longer hand to mouth
TWO friends who launched a cafe a decade ago with a £100 loan have just won a £260,000 grant to extend their business across the region.
Laura Webster and Pamela McKenna started their Community Cafe at Walker in Newcastle as a not-for-profit venture designed purely to give local people somewhere to meet up.
Now they have been given a £262,000 grant from the Big Lottery Fund to take on extra staff and help other areas to follow in their footsteps.
Laura said: “We both used the centre ourselves as parents and when I realised that the kitchen was hardly used, I asked if I could take it over on a voluntary basis.
“It’s just grown and grown ever since. As well as somewhere to get traditional English cooking, the cafe is a valuable link in to the community. We also provide outside catering and run luncheon clubs in local sheltered housing accommodation centres.”
The cafe also runs English cookery courses for asylum seekers and refugees in the area, which helps them improve their language skills and find out more about local culture and it also offers an unofficial advice referral system.
Pamela said: “Because so many people come in here to relax and have something to eat, an element of trust has built up between us and our customers.
“Quite often we can point them in the right direction for advice, support or even training.”
They work with social enterprise advice group SES.
Business support manager Linda Rutter said: “Laura and Pamela have developed a social business model that is extremely valuable to the local community.
“It is ventures like this that bind communities together, whilst welcoming new people in.”
Share
