Anyone for tea?!
Date
Dec 06, 2019
Categories
News
In our latest efforts to help out a local charity, the Paish Tooth team decided once again to support Gloucestershire Young Carers (GYC). This time our volunteering took a new turn, and involved a day in Tewkesbury Abbey Tea Rooms, preparing and serving refreshments to the visiting public.
On four Saturdays a year GYC hires out the Touching Souls Tea Room, which is situated within the grounds of Tewkesbury Abbey. The charity purchases all the stock of food and drink, and then is able to keep the profits from any money made on the day. Our role was to provide enough pairs of hands to ensure that our customers enjoyed tasty food and excellent service!
Our efforts began the night before, with the baking of six large home-made cakes to serve on the day. When we arrived at the Tea Rooms Jane Dyer, Fundraising Manager from GYC, gave us all a health and safety briefing before explaining our individual roles.
Our receptionist Sarah was put in charge of the till, which presented a challenge to start with but she soon got the hang of it! Patrick swapped his role as Director for that of pot washer, and took responsibility for the huge industrial dishwasher. Meanwhile Deepa and Nuala were given the job of food preparation – making up rolls and sandwiches and preparing jacket potatoes to order.
Deepa and Nuala were also joined by their daughters, Aabha and Leona, who were in charge of slicing the cakes (into huge portions!) and serving them. This was a suggestion made by GYC, who are always keen to give valuable experience to young people. We were also joined on the day by five other volunteers, including a teenager from Tewkesbury school who was completing her Duke of Edinburgh award.
Perhaps due to the recent flooding around Tewkesbury, the Tea Rooms were relatively quiet that day. However despite this we helped raise £190 which GYC were really pleased with. The charity supports more than 1,000 young carers in the county who are facing huge ‘adult-sized’ responsibilities at home, and fundraising from the Tea Rooms helps GYC with their work to reduce the impact of those responsibilities.
Jane Dyer said, “We have limited resources, and so running events like the Touching Souls Tearooms at Tewkesbury just couldn’t be done without the help of volunteers like Paish Tooth. They all worked really hard, and well done to Aabha and Leona for being brave on that counter. Thank you.”
It was a great experience to do something so different, and our shifts went by surprisingly quickly. We all really enjoyed helping out such a worthwhile cause!
Visit www.glosyoungcarers.org.uk to find out more about Gloucestershire Young Carers and the valuable work that they do.
Sarah on the till
Deepa making sandwiches
Patrick – chief pot-washer
Leona and Aabha serving the cakes
Touching Souls Tea Room
