Sarah’s Health Notes: The Community Café that created joy at Christmas 2023 – and their plans for 2024
I wrote this feature for the College of Medicine after I took part in NHS Somerset’s social prescribing conference in Taunton. I was there on behalf of the College’s Beyond Pills Campaign which I co-founded in June 2022. Among the many wonderful people there I met Caroline Blake and heard the story of what she calls her ‘best Christmas ever’.
When a trio of excited volunteers opened the doors of Victoria Park Community Café in Frome at 8am on Christmas Day 2023, they thought perhaps a dozen or so people might come. In fact, over the next few hours, 350 locals dropped in to wish each other ‘Merry Christmas’, chatting and milling around by a tree gleaming with baubles, the café lit by festoons of fairy lights. Led by Caroline Blake, the volunteers had been there prepping since 6.30 a.m. Now in full Father Christmas rig, they spent the day giving out hot drinks, cakes and little presents, some made by volunteers, others donations from local shops.
Anyone on their own was soon drawn in to sit with families so no one spent the day alone. One 14-year-old boy who’d woken up to find no food, no presents and his mother still passed out from drugs came to spend the day where he knew he’d be welcomed and looked after. ‘It was just such fun; we planned to close by lunchtime but we actually had to push the last ones out at 2.30,’ Caroline remembers.
Caroline and the team launched the Community Café in March last year as one of the initiatives run by Cultivating Community, a local community interest company started in 2019 by Sam Evans, a multi-skilled community advocate with a doctorate in organisational behaviour. The company aims to alleviate loneliness and isolation through nature-based connection.
Living nearby with her school age daughter, Caroline knew the park well. ‘Like lots of others, I would walk my dog there first thing on a wet windy morning and think “oh my gosh, I want a coffee”, but there was nowhere to go.’ Formerly in financial services with a US bank, Caroline had given up work to be at home for her children after getting divorced. She found herself ‘in a position of isolation’, intensified by deaths in her close family. ‘I struggled to connect with people and I needed a purpose that allowed me to feel I was contributing to society. So I talked to Sam and suggested we take on the then redundant café and I would run it day to day.’
The local council who own Victoria Park loved the proposal. Sam secured a National Lottery grant for equipment and now the Community Café opens from March to October, seven days a week from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., serving hot drinks and light refreshments. ‘Consistency of hours is a really key thing for the community, especially the elderly and lonely because they know there will be someone friendly to chat to,’ Caroline says.
Victoria Park Community Café is supported day to day by four part time paid staff (‘our biggest cost’) and a small team of volunteers, many of whom are neurodivergent, referred via the local primary care practice or by their parents. Working in the café forms part of a work skills training programme for them. ‘These volunteers have different needs – some have issues with noise, others with communicating – but we see what they’re comfortable with and adapt.’ Once they pass their food hygiene certificates, these helpers may prefer to prepare food or be responsible for cleaning rather than being out front on the counter, Sam explains. ‘But sometimes we can nudge the backroom ones out to take a coffee to a customer, for instance; then you often find them chatting away.’
Three local schools use the café for special needs pupils who come with matched teacher support to run the café as pop-ups. Caroline trains both pupils and teachers then they take over, with supervisors in the background. The scheme is so successful that two other schools are asking for slots.
One 11-year-old pupil was ‘really struggling at school, getting into trouble and not wanting to go to lessons – a challenge for the staff. But we have never seen him except as the sweetest-natured boy,’ Caroline says. She taught him to make soup, which he did so well he now finds recipes and gives her lists of ingredients to buy. ‘He has a real sense of pride and achievement. His teachers see a massive difference in him through his motivation to come to the café.’ Other community programmes include mother and baby groups, therapy dogs, chair yoga and autism awareness, as well as events for children through the summer.
This year, Caroline and Sam expect as many people on Christmas Day, very likely more. ‘So we’ll need more volunteers,’ they chorus. ‘For a lot of people, it’s a difficult sad time of year,’ continues Caroline. ‘This way, people can come and have a party without needing to get lots of presents, or cook food to eat on their own. Loneliness is more pervasive than ever but the café is very inclusive. We have all ages and different backgrounds; it’s really nice to see the comfort it gives everyone.’
Among the jollities this coming Christmas Day will be a competition for the best-dressed dog, wearing a festive jumper obviously…
