Estimated Price

£500

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Summary

Support with cost of Christmas meals for Cafe Solace Kilbirnie customers

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Description

Cafe Solace Kilbirnie provides low cost meals each Friday at lunchtime and in the evening to the community.   These are very popular with between 30-40 customers at lunchtime and 70-80 in the evening.  Children under 12 or anyone in need eat free.   For some of our customers, we are the only friendly people they will speak to in a week, and it may be the only home cooked meal that they have.   At Christmas we like to make even more special, in particular for those customers who have no family to share the festivities with, and our chef and volunteers prepare a lovely three course traditional Christmas feast and arrange a visit from Santa to present wee gift bags for each of our customers (held over two weeks due to numbers - up to 170).   We do make a nominal charge for the Christmas events, but to avoid hardship to those customers who are struggling financially we heavily subsidise these from our own funds (and children still eat free).   We have been fortunate in receiving support from other areas in previous years to assist with costs and reduce the impact on our funds.   This year, the volunteer team are carrying out some fundraising to pay for the small gifts that we will give our customers (sponsored walk, guess the teddy's birthday etc).   Based on last year's costs (£1,677.39), and the continued increase in food prices, we estimate that we will need to subside the events by around £8-900 from our funds.   Our food costs over the past months have been higher than predicted, due to the unsuitability of much of the food that we are receiving from Fareshare and we are anticipating heavier than normal expenditure in the early part of 2025 as we start to plant out our new vegetable garden.  To enable us to meet our ongoing commitments and still provide a festive treat out for our customers, we are requesting funding of £500 to be put towards the purchase of food required for our Christmas meals (approx £2.94 per potential attendee).