Customers, now volunteers
“Our policy is that no-one sits alone.
We get to know people and we care.”
Every Thursday, around 50 local people get together for hot drinks and toast and to chat with their neighbours at the St Martin’s Church Community Café Place of Welcome in Walsall. But people haven’t always known each other, and neither have the volunteers who run the cafe.
The Community Cafe opened in 2007 but had to close when Covid struck, reopening as a Place of Welcome once restrictions were lifted. Numbers have gradually grown to around 45-50 people attending each week.
Jane Quinn and Helen Murray organise a team of volunteers who serve hot drinks and toast (fruit toast is the favourite) and shop for the café each week. The Cafe serves an estate of bungalows and houses in a community where lots of mainly older people live alone, sometimes not speaking to anyone from one week to the next. Along with their team leaders, they helped reopen the café, joining the Places of Welcome network to help people get together regularly and benefit from being part of the community.
They noticed that lots of people would walk past St Martin’s Church and the halls on their way to the local Co-Op, and that they were perfectly placed to gather these people together. “We make sure everyone is welcomed at the door with a warm, friendly smile” Jane said. “People can come somewhere warm, have something to eat, free of charge and make friends.”
Once people arrive they’re served tea, coffee or hot chocolate and toast , biscuits or sometimes cake, giving volunteers the chance to chat and find out how people are by serving at the tables. Any of the volunteers who are available can sit down at a table with community members and chat.
Word of mouth often brings people through the door, but carers also get in touch to find out what support is on offer. The team can provide a 1-1 buddy service if needed, where a single volunteer meets a community member outside the venue each week, and accompanies them into the café to sit with them & chat. This happens each week for up to six weeks, or until the client is confident enough to come in on their own.
The team recently supported a customer to cross the street to the café . When he arrived for the first time and sat with a regular group, he discovered that the man to his left lived just on the corner, right by his bungalow, but they’d never met. They made plans to meet again the following week.
Many of the Cafe’s volunteers started off as customers.
“They know what it’s like to be on their own. And they get a lot of out of it as well. They look forward to coming and volunteering because they’re getting the chance to actually give back, and get to know everyone in their group.”
— Jane
The team often provides activities during the café, and people chat about the local area. They share local information eg where the hairdressers are or where the best place to get the bus is. “We sing happy birthday to people if we know it’s their birthday, as they might not hear it from anyone else.” They often welcome visitors: local Walsall councillors hold their surgery at the cafe on the first week of every month, Walsall White Watch fire crew offered free fire safety checks for people’s homes, and NHS reps attend to speak and listen to community members so that their needs and views are heard. The Cafe also welcomes members of the Community Garden who pop in for refreshments as well as the Bereavement Group members.
Jane has seen an increase in numbers in the colder months, and we sometimes wraps up toast for them to take home if its needed.
The St Martin’s Church Community Café Place of Welcome is open between 10 and midday every Thursday. There are 612 other Places of Welcome spread out all around the country. Find one near you
Join the Places of Welcome network and provide a friendly face, a cup of tea and conversation.