What is the vision of your Business?
We are a vintage style cafe offering home-made breakfasts lunches cakes etc. We pride ourselves on being part of the village community & everyone is welcome.
Why has your Business signed the ‘End Poverty Pledge’?
We just want to be part of the solution and not the problem. If you stand by, you’re almost complicit. If you want to live in a community that is as equal as possible, we have to do something ourselves and keep the ball rolling.
What examples can you give of your Business putting the ‘End Poverty Pledge’ into practice?
We run a successful weekly mum & baby group as somewhere for mums to connect, supported by an ex-midwife and breastfeeding counsellor & have various classes & clubs throughout the week.
We cater for local freelancers and entrepreneurs as we offer free WI-FI and also host business networking events.
Our food is sourced locally, e.g. from the local butchers and is prepared on site.
We are involved in charitable work including supporting the local food bank by having an onsite donation box and helping to fundraise for disadvantaged children. Other efforts have included collecting bras for Africa, sanitary products for the homeless in London, winter coats for those in need and collecting Easter Eggs for children who have had to flee their homes due to domestic violence.
We offer work experience to students from NESCOT who have special needs and help them into employment and have built our team by employing local people.
We advertise local children’s groups and activities and sell locally produced honey and crafts to support our community.
We host charity night fundraisers to help raise money for local charities.
We tried a ‘pay it forward’ scheme where people can buy a coffee for someone in need, but find that people don’t claim those coffees. We tend to just say ‘that one’s on us’ if we think someone is struggling.
What would you hope to be able to do more of in the longer term?
We would like to ask Good Company to carry out poverty awareness training with our staff team.
We will encourage other local businesses to sign up to the End Poverty Pledge.