Our Father’s Heart

Our Father’s Heart say:

Thanks to the assistance of The Purey Cust Trust and many others, we have now recently opened a Chocolate & Co café in the Groves area of York to provide employment opportunities to people with a previous history of addiction and homelessness.

We opened the café employing three people (our beneficiaries) and within a month have increased this to five, including someone on placement from a local prison. Our first couple of months of trading have demonstrated that there is a demand for a café in this area of York.

Our cafe has also started to become a place of support for our beneficiaries and those people marginalised within our community. Our café is open to all and we want to be able to provide a warm welcoming place for people to come and enjoy a hot meal and drink, especially over the coming winter. We have started a “pay-it- forward” board which allows our customers to fund meals & drinks for others who cannot afford to pay.

We also encourage any customers who might feel lonely to take our “Want to chat” signs to their tables. Staff/volunteers always make a point of chatting to all our customers, but this gives customers an opportunity to proactively invite staff, volunteers and other customers to connect and allow them to share their story.

We have used the money provided by The Purey Cust Trust to pay the salary of our peer mentor supervisor, who is in recovery themself, being 2 years sober in January. They are thriving in this role and with The Purey Cust Trust’s help in funding their role, it has given them the opportunity to look at renting their own property and therefore see their children more.

With your help we have transformed a betting shop into a beautiful welcoming café and therefore provided an amazing place to work for our beneficiaries.

Please come and see for yourself…

How we made a Chocolate & Co café…

From getting the keys

To opening the café…