The National Lottery Community Fund has awarded The Chatty Café Scheme funding over two years to help grow the number of volunteer-hosted Chatter & Natter tables in hospitality venues nationwide.
This funding will help us meet the demand for our services which continues to grow every day, allowing us to continue to help people feel less lonely and connect communities through people meeting at Chatter & Natter tables.
The Chatty Café Scheme trains local people to volunteer to host Chatter & Natter tables in hospitality venues such as cafes, pubs and community centres, creating opportunities for face-to-face conversations and tackling loneliness. We also run a telephone friendship service and online Chatty Cafes.
Loneliness is complex and can often be linked to various mental and physical problems and our strategy is to help tackle loneliness which could in turn, improve a person’s mental and physical health. Whilst our services are not intended to be crisis support, they act as preventative measures and could stop a person from hitting crisis point, which severe loneliness could lead to.
So many incredible people are involved in The Chatty Cafe Scheme and truly support our ethos that ‘having a chat can brighten someone’s day.’ As well as hundreds of beneficiaries, this also includes huge numbers of amazing volunteers, who often report that supporting people to feel less lonely makes them feel better too.
We are so grateful to the National Lottery Community Fund to enable us to continue the important work that we do.
“I would like to say a very big thank you to the National Lottery Community Fund for their continued support. Their funding allows me to be able to deliver our volunteer programme to support people in setting up and hosting Chatter & Natter tables. I love working with our incredible volunteers and supporting them to reach more people experiencing loneliness, and hearing all about the people they meet and friendships being built at the Chatter & Natter sessions.” Jenny Bimpson, Volunteers Manager at The Chatty Café Scheme
