Watsonia Pantry set to open at the Bridge Cafe

The Bridge Café, based in the Watsonian Pavilion in Beeston’s Cross Flatts Park is becoming quite a community hub.

The café itself is open again serving hot and cold food and drinks, outside, Monday to Friday 9am-3pm.

The café is an offshoot of Health For All’s Bridge Project which supports adults with learning disabilities. The latest additions to café’s offer are a Little Library and a table tennis table. Leeds Little Libraries donated the mobile library box, which can be accessed when the café is open. Anyone can borrow or donate books and it’s already proving popular.

The outdoor table tennis table is also available during café opening hours. Bats and balls can be borrowed from the café for a deposit of £2. Once it is permanently fixed to the ground people will be able to use it, with their own equipment, at any time.

But perhaps the most exciting development is the new Watsonia Food Pantry, which is set to open on Wednesday 5 May.

The Pantry aims to support local people struggling to put food on the table. It’s not a foodbank, but for a small membership fee – £3.50 per week – local people will be able to access a weekly shop choosing their own items from a selection of dry goods and fresh fruit and vegetables.

The pantry will be open each Wednesday and each member will get a 15 minute slot to choose their items so that the pantry can comply with Covid restrictions.

If you would like to use this new service please call Sid, the café manager, on 07944 461545.

The Pantry project has been funded by The grant has been awarded through the Covid-19 Community-Led Organisations Recovery Scheme (CCLORS). The scheme is led by independent trust Power to Change in partnership with Locality, The Ubele Initiative and Social Investment Business, and was part of The National Lottery Community Fund’s Coronavirus Community Support Fund, that launched in May last year. It is also supported by FairShare Yorkshire which redistributes food close to its sell by date.

 

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