£140k lotto cash boost to fund church social café

A CHURCH has been awarded more than £140,000 in lottery funding to launch a community café.

The Oasis Community Enterprise Café will open at Burslem Methodist Mission in Swan Square after the Big Lottery Fund agreed to finance the project for the next five years.

The café will support people suffering financial hardship and social deprivation and offer jobseekers work placements in catering and hospitality as well as being a meeting place in the community.

Administrator at the church, Glynis Cooper said: "The community café will help to reduce social isolation.

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"It will also be great to have a fair priced, good quality coffee shop in a town that has seen much unemployment and factory closures over the past few years.

"Our prayer is to bring the local community together as never before, all ages, all abilities, all colours and creeds." The cafe will be linked with a raft of volunteer schemes run by Burslem JET (jobs and enterprise training), Groundwork and Jobcentre Plus.

Glynis added: "We particularly want to offer support to those living among social deprivation - single parent families, vulnerable and disadvantaged people."

There are also plans to open the café during the evenings as a base for young people. Youth clubs, dance groups and homework clubs could be based there, while volunteer groups will be invited to use it as a meeting place.

Burslem historian Fred Hughes, said: "It's a substantial amount of money and I think that's well merited for a community organisation like the Methodist Mission.

"It's not so much a religious group as a Burslem-promoting organisation.

"If it's providing jobs and somewhere for people to go to then I think it is something that should be welcomed in the area."

Paula Timmis, aged 41, is on the church's property committee and works there as a caretaker.

She said: "It will be open for the community and it will show people they don't have to come to church to come down here."

Husband Glyn, aged 39, a member of the congregation, said: "Something like this makes the church more open to people."

The area earmarked for the café - which will cost £142,396 - will have its own entrance to encourage people to use it.

John Taylor, Big Lottery Fund's head of the West Midlands region, added: "As well as providing volunteering opportunities and training, the Oasis Community Enterprise Café will become a focal point for young people, keeping them off the streets and offering them positive activities.

"I am delighted to see lottery funding supporting a vital community project."