Cafe to provide Christmas Day lunch for lonely people

Linda Holmes will open the Sensory World Play Centre and Cafe in Old Westgate to anyone who has nowhere else to go on December 25.

She said: “The more you work with people, especially those with challenges in their lives, the more you realise that simply being together with other people is the best form of support you can provide, whatever their problem.

“So I decided to make sure that Christmas Day was not going to be an empty, lonely day for anyone who wants to come down to the cafe. And it’s going to be a proper, traditional, Christmas dinner with all the trimmings.”

Lunch will be served noon-2pm after which the cafe will be handed over to the Real Junk Food Project, which serves meals from fresh food that would otherwise have gone to waste on a “pay-as-you-feel” basis.

Linda’s cafe was established to support her sensory play centre, where children with sensory deprivation can come for play sessions with specifically designed equipment, and now hosts the Real Junk Food Project in the town.

Linda said: “We run the Real Junk Food cafe every Friday evening from 5.30pm-7.30pm and it’s amazing how food brings people together, both to help one another and to share their problems and solutions.

“We now rent our kitchen and cafe out to minority ethnic groups for family celebrations. They might be living in circumstances where they couldn’t possibly offer hospitality for their friends on family occasions but can do so from our cafe.”

“It get’s pretty frantic at times but I’m just looking forward to making some people smile on Christmas Day”

Lindas’s lunch is priced £5.95 and must be booked in advance on 01924 456152.