New coffee trailer helps young people get on solid ground
It is open two days a week
A group of young people looking to get on the right track have opened a coffee trailer on Euclid Street.
Supported by Swindon Borough Council’s Youth Justice Service and SMASH Youth Project, they are getting insight into a real-life work environment.
Over the last months, the young people have gone through hospitality training and learned new skills all while remaining in a supportive environment.
One of the young people who works on the van and receives support from SMASH Youth Project said: "Since starting at the van, I have gained confidence in myself and become more confident and tolerant of others, as well as gaining customer service skills.
"I feel I have more hope and plans for the future now and I am starting to learn how to budget and plan better with the money I earn. I am grateful to the training opportunities and have now learned barista skills.
"I have enhanced my food preparation skills further through my work on the van and I contributed to the high food and hygiene standards of the van, which I’m proud of, especially as we received an award.”
The aim is for the café to help prevent young people from offending and reoffending.
The young people have received barista training from a local coffee shop, worked to get their food hygiene certificates and helped with the coffee trailer’s design.
“What you’ll see on the van is the coffee monster. A young person drew it up and then worked with the comms and creative design teams over at SMASH to redesign it into the logo”, Rowan Kikke, lead for innovation and collaboration at SMASH, told Greatest Hits Radio.
“And then the name ‘Solid Ground Coffee’ came from a young person as well. We were talking a lot about the idea that you could learn a skill and look to the future instead of looking to the past and where something might not have happened well for you. And this young person said that if he’d had an opportunity like that, he would’ve felt like he was stood on solid ground.
“I got shivers and I knew in that moment that we had the name and it was perfect.”
£25,000 worth of funding for the project came from the Police and Crime Commissioner’s office.
“We are constantly looking for initiatives which give young people the opportunity to move out of the clutches of the organised crime groups which want to drag them down into the world of drugs and criminality”, said Philip Wilkinson, PCC for Wiltshire and Swindon.
“Through funding the coffee van and working with an organisation like SMASH, which has a proven track record in working with young people, we’re able to provide them with the confidence and skills to give them the opportunity to find meaningful employment and make a positive contribution to their local community.”
Its location on Swindon Borough Council’s civic campus – next to the red-brick Clarence House building – ensures that there will be a continuous demand for coffee and food, so that Solid Ground Coffee can provide a start into working life over the next years.
The trailer is currently open every Wednesday and Thursday between 10am and 3pm.