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Grantham church launches new community cafe




Volunteers Pat Hiley and Linda Dawson will help run the cafe
Volunteers Pat Hiley and Linda Dawson will help run the cafe

Balloons and banners marked the opening of a new community cafe last week.

Treasurer Sue Barnes is one of 13 church volunteers who will help run the cafe on a Friday morning, on a rota basis.

Local residents turned up to mark the cafe opening on Friday.
Local residents turned up to mark the cafe opening on Friday.

She said: “Somewhere like this is desperately needed in this area. There are a lot of mums with young children and elderly people living on their own. The cafe gives them somewhere warm and safe to meet friends.”

Before opening the cafe, the church volunteers visited people within the local area to hear their views on the new cafe.

Sue, who is also heading up the garden project, added; “We found that lots of people are extremely lonely, so the cafe will give them somewhere to go, where they will always receive a warm welcome.”

Jackie Laverwick, who lives on Tennyson Avenue, Grantham, stopped by after seeing posters advertising the cafe.

She said: “We really need something like this up here.”

Friends Melissa Pigott and Michelle Farmer also went to show their support. Melissa said: “We bring our children to Toybox, so it has been nice to come and enjoy a relaxing cup of tea.”

Sue added: “I am really pleased with the turnout, especially as it was a bitterly cold day.”

The garden cafe will open every Friday between 9am and 12pm, offering a range of tasty treats including hot drinks, soup and cakes.

The cafe is part of a much larger project and long-term vision for the centre including additional outdoor seating, landscaping the outside area and creating a garden with raised planting areas, where the local community can come and grow fruit and vegetables.

It has also been chosen as the Co-op charity of the year.

Over 30 church volunteers spent a weekend in September clearing away overgrown hedging, to mark the beginning of the garden project after volunteers believed that the hedge was acting as a barrier between the church and residents living nearby.

Sue added: “We felt so enclosed. When we got rid of the hedge and opened it all up, many people commented that they didn’t realise that we were here. Some even thought that we were a doctors surgery.”

For more information, visit: www.harrowbylane.org.uk



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