Community cafe closes after funding runs out

A community kitchen has been forced to close its popular community cafe after funding for the project came to an end.

OsNosh, at The Centre, in Oswestry, provided freshly prepared meals twice a week for anyone who needed them, as well as offering people a place to meet, chat and feel part of their community.

Although the cafe had now closed, the charity was keen to stress its wider work to support local people by collecting and redistributing surplus food would continue.

Project director, Bex Syrett, said they had served subsidised hot meals through a pay as you can service or by asking for minimum donations of £5.

"Because our funding has come to an end, we have no more funding at the moment, we aren't able to just subsidise that," she explained.

"If someone else wanted to subsidise it for us, we'd happily talk to them."

Syrett said the charity, which previously had Big Lottery Funding until it ran out, was serving about 60 to 70 meals to people this time last year.

She said there was also a pay it forward system, to ensure they would never turn away anyone who couldn't afford to have a hot meal.

"We were always happy to do that," she added.

"It's important that we were providing some really nutritious healthy food that they could have and it's some hot food for them."

Volunteers are continuing with the charity's other services, which includes visiting Shropshire Food Hub in Shrewsbury once a week to collect food from national redistribution organisation, FareShare.

"We collect a lot of surplus food from supermarkets, Lidl, Aldi, M&S, and we bring it here to the centre spot, then we redistribute that food to the community," Syrett said.

"We might also send food down to the food bank as well, specifically if we've got tins, or surplus of fresh fruits and vegetables."

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