Caring For Life - Catering Academy £5,000 awarded 2012
Caring For Life’s Farm shop and Granary Café have become an extraordinarily successful social enterprise. Caring For Life relies on several thousand supporters for its chief income source, but has always sought to increase its self-generated income by any means. The Granary and Farm Shop have provided an excellent platform for the charity to market its fresh and frozen farm produced beef and lamb, free range eggs, plants and woodwork items.
Joe with Chef Peter
The Granary Café & Farm Shop have proved so successful that the Trust has just completed the development of a café and restaurant facility three times the size, and a farm shop ten times the size, in the neighbouring 17th Century barn. The new facility opened to the public in 2011. Gary and Joe, both of whom have a learning disability, are currently working there and are soon to be employed full-time. The progress that both of them have made from the Catering academy to working in the old Granary/farm shop has enabled them to progress to employment within a supported environment, which is a wonderful achievement. Caring For Life hopes that there will be further such opportunities for Catering Academy students in the future. CFL say they are deeply grateful to the Trustees of The Margaret Dobson Further Education Trust for their generous support of the Catering Academy Programme.
Gary in the Retail Outlet
