Liverpool Friends open café

Friends in Liverpool launch a new project

Friends in Liverpool have just launched a new project that will help Quaker outreach in the city.

The Quaker Meeting house café is a collaboration with local charity Blackburne House. Its menu is vegetarian, with an emphasis on fresh, seasonal food.

A 2012 Discernment Meeting held by Liverpool Quakers sowed the seeds for the venture, which was launched last week.

At the Discernment Meeting, Friends agreed that their building was unwelcoming. Money was set aside for a remodelling of the ground floor (worship rooms are upstairs), to include a Quiet Room, community areas and a café. The café was to operate as a social enterprise.

‘The café has three aims: to raise revenue to take our work further, to demonstrate our values through the integrity of our practice and to encourage people to come into the building,’ Liverpool Quakers’ outreach worker Lisa Hoyle told the Friend.

Local Friends advertised the partnership opportunity before approaching Blackburne House. The charity started out as a women’s technology centre and now also runs social enterprises and supports developing businesses. It is particularly concerned with equality, making it a good fit for the Meeting. Blackburne House’s share of the café profits will fund training bursaries for women, Lisa said.

The café is staffed by paid workers – all of them earning a living wage – but once it is established, volunteers from local charity North West Community Services will be brought on board.

‘We have learned much from the establishment of the café. It has taken much longer than we first thought and there is much to be done. We can, though, say that we are working towards our Meeting’s intention to provide a spirit-led space that is open and accessible in the middle of our bustling city,’ said Lisa.

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