St George’s Crypt earlier this year set up a Community Interest called Nurture. It opened it's first cafe on Monday 24th October. This was in the Oxford Place Methodist Centre,Oxford PLace LS1 3AX, which is in the heart of Leeds City Centre. The cafe will be open Monday to Friday each week from 10am - 3pm in the lounge cafe. Prices are very reasonable £1 tea or coffee, sandwiches and Jacket potatoes from £2. A great place to relax or meet up with your friends or collegues!
They also cater for buffets; please contact David Pilling on 0113 245 9061.
Nurture has two key areas of activity – catering and horticulture. The main focus of its objectives is to provide training and engagement for people who have either been resident in Faith Lodge – a hostel for those recovering from addiction, or clients of the Crypt’s drop-in centre.
Nurture has a number of contracts for catering for conferences, meetings and seminars; and is developing horticultural projects at a farm in North Lee
ds, at Faith Lodge in a polytunnel, and in the Crypt’s garden which has been entered into the Leeds In Bloom 2011 competition.
The horticulture has been very much boosted by a group of residents from Faith Lodge who were part of a team from hostels up and down the country who participated in the award-winning Places of Change show garden at the Chelsea Flower Show 2010, under the supervision of the Eden Project.
As far as the catering goes, Nurture is aiming to train people in food hygiene, food preparation and hospitality so that they are positioned to move in due time from Nurture to apprenticeships or placements outside. The first opportunity is about to be taken up with Pret a Manger in Leeds – the first apprenticeship taken up by the Pret Foundation outside London.
Nurture is looking to develop further and is currently seeking to identify a volunteer who can act as a Horticulture mentor to work with and inspire the present team.
