Gloucester charity the Friendship Café has received a grant of £1,000 to expand its youth and community activities.
The Friendship Café provides youth and community based activities, focusing mainly but not exclusively on young people, children and families in the inner city and surrounding areas of Gloucester.
Since April 2011, the Friendship Café has also managed the St. James City Farm and now runs a variety of activities, including riding lessons, archery, karate, and sewing classes.
The team has been building a new coffee shop to allow more individuals to drop in to meet others; helping to reduce social isolation. The café is situated in a multicultural area of Gloucester, and the team have worked hard to ensure everyone is welcome and included.
The CareTech Foundation made the donation as part of their family and friends grant funding programme. The Friendship Café was recommended by Joanne, as service manager at Matson House, a care home which supports adults with learning difficulties. The new funding will support the Friendship Café’s development as the team expand the activities on offer as part of the city farm project and at the café.
Joanne said: “The Friendship Café has been an amazing resource not only for the local community but for our service users also”.
Imran Atcha (Friendship Café), Viva O’Flynn, Daniel Kortwright, Rev Pat Gifford and Joanne Davis (CareTech, Matson House)
Imran Atcha, Friendship Café co-ordinator and volunteer riding instructor, said: “We are really grateful for this grant – it couldn’t have come at a better time! We are on the verge of opening a community coffee shop based at our centre; something that we feel is really needed in the community. We have been planning and working on this for a long time, thanks to help from lots of different organisations, and in our final stages we realised that we are going over budget. This grant will go towards some last pieces of kit that we needed.”
Jonathan Freeman, Chief Executive of the CareTech Foundation said: “The Friendship Café is a fantastic project and exactly the sort of thing we love to support. I know the activities it offers are making a real difference to young people in care and to the wider community.”
About the CareTech Foundation:
Established in 2017, the CareTech Charitable Foundation is an independent grant-making corporate foundation registered with the Charity Commission. Funded and founded by CareTech Holdings PLC, the Foundation has an independent Board of trustees responsible for delivering its Charitable Objects.
The Foundation has ambitious and clear-sighted objectives to deliver meaningful impact to communities in the UK and overseas about which the staff of CareTech PLC and its service users feel proud and strongly engaged, providing a unique contribution to the charitable marketplace consistent with CareTech PLC’s values and approach.
About The Friendship Café:
The Friendship Cafe provides youth & community based activities, focusing mainly but not exclusively on young people, children and families in the inner city and surrounding areas of Gloucester, although users are from diverse backgrounds all around the County, which means that the services are used by hundreds of different people each week.
