from Beverley Hoyte, Project Team Leader
Grays Beach’s Lightship Café opened for a new season on Saturday 18 January. This community café, run by volunteers, is open each Saturday from January to March from 10am to 4pm.
The Lightship café aims gives customers the opportunity to experience waiter and waitress service in a friendly atmosphere with freshly prepared and well-presented food.
Project Team Leader Beverley Hoyte said, “The vision for the project includes not just serving food, but also encouraging involvement, learning new skills, creating a sense of purpose, and promoting a healthy lifestyle”.
The project’s motto of “Run for the community, by the community” says it all.
The café is staffed by over 30 volunteers from all walks of life and all ages, coming from Aveley to Stanford and all points between. It is the brainchild of a group of dedicated volunteers from local churches.
To learn the skills needed the volunteers have attended a number of training days and courses covering such area as Food Hygiene, Customer Service, till operation and COSHH. Some courses were in-house training, some part of the Thurrock ACE programme, and some external. As a result volunteers now have new qualifications to add to their CVs. The requirement for a First Aid presence is being provided by volunteers from Triple L Training.
The café serves full English breakfast, a “light bites” lunchtime menu of jacket potatoes, paninis, a range of sandwiches, and soup with a warm crusty roll, together with a delicious afternoon menu of cream teas and a selection of cakes.
The Lightship Café is grateful to Thurrock Council for their support in allowing the use of the building, ngage and Thurrock Adult Community College for the training via the ACE programme, and Triple L Training for the First Aid cover.
For further information please visit the website http://www.lightshipcafe.org.uk or contact them at info@lightshipcafe.org.uk. You can also “like” the café on their Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Lightship-Cafe/247182958684206
You can also read this article and see more photos at Thurrock Celebrates – http://thurrockcelebrates.wordpress.com/2014/01/20/community-cafe-opens-for-a-new-season/
