Abingdon residents can look forward to visiting a fantastic new Community Hub that will occupy the ground floor of the ‘Charter’ building in central Abingdon. The wheelchair accessible, 3,000 square feet of space – formerly a Day Centre and more recently a Covid vaccination centre – will be transformed into an incredible community space by Oxfordshire charity Yellow Submarine. The area will provide a venue for the organisation who support young people with learning disabilities and autism. Anna Cheetham, Co-Director of Yellow Submarine tells us more…
“We are really looking forward to opening the Community Hub within the Charter; the site not only gives us space for our Life-Changing Bakes production, but also provides a decent size food preparation area, social and learning spaces for our members to learn new skills and personal development opportunities. Our plan is to use this space as a Hub, housing Yellow Submarine whilst meeting the needs of the wider community. The ‘Charter’ is owned by South and Vale District Council who are delighted to see us using the space to create an area where social, learning, wellbeing and enterprise projects can all be based. We are also surrounded by complementary services such as the Library, GP surgery, MIND and The Abingdon Bridge (TAB) counselling service. We have also received the support of the Town Council and Abingdon Mayor.
We are in discussions with other organisations that provide services for the disadvantaged or marginalised groups in Abingdon. We have interest from The Abingdon DAMASCUS Youth Project, Abingdon Community Larder run by SOFEA, and Dementia Friendly Abingdon – all these organisations would also like to use the space. This creates a wonderful opportunity for some fantastic inclusive inter-generational work. For example, we will host a pop-up café for Dementia patients and their carers, facilitated by our members who will serve drinks and fabulous baked items from their Life-Changing Bakes. It also provides the opportunity to chat and play games.”
Opening the doors on such a project has taken a huge amount of fund-raising and organisation by the award-winning charity Yellow Submarine. They have received support from the Meanwhile in Oxfordshire initiative to ensure the space best meets the needs of the local community. Financially, they are fundraising £100,000 to reconfigure the building, ensuring they can create a welcoming, inclusive café space for the people of Abingdon.
“We are hoping to harness the power of volunteers and local businesses,” Anna continues. “We want to ensure the building is created for and built by the people it will serve, with participatory engagement at its heart. If local people and businesses would like to support us, we would love to hear from them. Please contact me at Anna@yellowsubmarine.org.uk for details on how to get involved.”
Yellow Submarine was established in 2009 by the Staveley family. One of their family members, Max, suffered from Down Syndrome and when he needed a holiday, the cost could be astronomical as he required multiple carers, their food, accommodation, and travel costs, all to be added to his travel costs. With Max’s dream holiday being a visit to Disneyland, Toby and Lucy Staveley drew on their existing skills and created Yellow Submarine. Their aim was to run holidays for people in Max’s situation together with their families or carers too. By piloting a modest number of small group breaks, bringing together people with similar interests, whilst keeping costs as low as possible, using willing friends and family as volunteers. The breaks they created were affordable and fun whilst providing the necessary support and care. They went on to establish Yellow Submarine as a charity in 2010, appointing Trustees and started to employ a small group of people to help them develop the services they can provide to young people with learning disabilities and autism. Sadly, Max passed away, but his memory lives on.
The new site in Abingdon will be the third run by Yellow Submarine. The others are Social Enterprise cafes on Park End Street near Oxford Railway Station and Witney in The Windrush Leisure Centre. On average, 70,000 customers visit the cafes annually attracted by the quality of the coffee and food on offer. ‘Life-Changing Bakes’ gives trainees at Yellow Submarine the chance to learn new baking skills, and produce delicious cookies, tarts, celebration cakes and tray bakes, all sold exclusively at their cafes and available online at yellowsubmarineshop.org
To find out more about the charity please visit www.yellowsubmarine.org.uk and yellowsubmarineshop.org/cafes
