Community cafe serving up food and friendship is a 'huge benefit'
A CAFE serving up surplus food – as well as “conversation and laughter” – has been hailed for helping connect families and friends across the local community.
Cornerstone Community Café, run by Clifton Methodist Church, provides heavily subsidised surplus food from Tesco and makes it available to people in the Rotherham area, supporting local families.
The charity receives goods as part of the Community Food Connection surplus food scheme, which involves local Tesco stores and food surplus redistribution charity FareShare.
Jennifer Lovell, volunteer at Cornerstone Community Café, said: “Our plan was for a café, open to all, serving food at affordable prices that gave people a space to meet and socialise.
“Our clientele are mainly older people, who would otherwise be eating alone, with some younger parents with small children.
“Over the years it has been lovely to see friendship groups develop and grow – there is a lot of conversation and laughter around.
“There’s a huge benefit to the local community having somewhere pleasant and warm to meet with friends and share food, and the volunteers enjoy working together for something worthwhile.”
Claire De Silva, Tesco head of community, said: “Working with community groups such as Cornerstone Community Café to help them get the food they need is such an important service for us to be able to provide.
“The dedication they have to their community is amazing, and we are pleased to do what we can to support.”
Katie Sadler, head of FareShare Go, added: “The food that Tesco redistributes through FareShare makes a huge difference to people facing food insecurity across the UK.”