Free café opens for city street community

A free café has opened in the heart of Cardiff at the city parish church for the need of homeless or highly vulnerable people.

Grace Café is a joint project between the City Parish Church of St John the Baptist and Llandaff Cathedral. Based in St. John's in Cardiff city centre (CF10 1GJ), the café is open once a week (Tuesdays, 10.30am-noon) and serves free toast, tea, coffee, soft rolls and biscuits for anyone who needs it.

The Revd Sarah Jones, priest-in-charge of St John's, devotes her ministry to building relationships with the ‘street community’ and individuals who are in need. She personally invites people who sleep or beg on the streets or are vulnerably housed to Grace Café where volunteers from St John’s and the cathedral receive them with classic warm Welsh hospitality.

Sarah says, “We wanted to do something practical for people. Originally, we thought of the people who begged in Cardiff for money and then we realised that there were lots of other needs - for people who might not look as if they couldn't afford something. So, we've expanded it. Having the cathedral as 50/50 partners with us is great and a lot of fun.”

The startup costs were jointly funded between St. John's and the cathedral. Canon Jan van-der-Lely, Chancellor of Llandaff Cathedral, supports the project with administration and the cathedral has also provided equipment.

Sarah says she is thrilled with the response to the café so far. “Some people who are not in need of free food have come and joined us. They've sat down at a table and paid for a coffee and some toast alongside these people who they might have seen 200 yards further down the road sitting on the pavement.”

Providing café style food and environment is practical and manageable for the facilities of the city church. There are other warm hubs and kitchens in Cardiff that provide more substantial hot meals for free or very low cost. Sarah says, “It's a mixture of practicality, but also realising that we slot in alongside lots of other different people who were already doing good things.”

Six weeks into the project, the Grace Café project team have adapted to the specific needs of the street community, many of whom have limited or poor dental care.

They now take the crusts off the toast, for example, and provide soft rolls and crumpets as an alternative.

“We're learning lessons about what is better to provide,” says Sarah. “One of the things about St. John's is we want to be a place of social justice in the city and in the wider diocese and I know the Cathedral is very keen to be involved in social justice issues, some of which would be outside their parish boundary.

“It is about responding to human need, which is one of the five marks of Anglican mission. So, it is exactly one of the things that St. John's and the cathedral want to be doing.

“We don't initiate evangelism conversations but of course what we want is for people to feel happy and comfortable in church, and if they want to ask us for prayer, or if they want to go to part of the church and pray on their own, then that's great.”