“Nobody oughta be alone on Christmas”, as anyone who seen Home Alone 2: Lost in New York will remember.
For all the festive cheer the winter months bring, they can also be characterised as a period of isolation for those unable to see family and friends.
But nestled in the heart of Chard town centre, there’s somewhere where you can find the company and support you need – not just at Christmas, but all year round.
The Chard CommuniTEA Waffle, at 6A Holyrood Street, is a new social enterprise designed to bring together various services and voluntary groups under one roof – serving delicious food and supporting those most in need.
READ MORE: Chard CommuniTEA Waffle opens its doors to the public
Town councillor Jason Baker, one of the waffle house’s volunteers, met with the Local Democracy Reporting Service shortly after the official opening of the new facility.
He said: “More than a year ago now, we were talking about issues around loneliness and older people – problems that were popping up through casework and different things in the town.
“Jenny Kenton and I were trying to find different things for people to do in groups, and we were aware of the carer support group and different things that were going on.
“We went over to the Axminster waffle house for lunch one day and it just kind of blew us away a bit. It was really good – it had a really good atmosphere, they were doing lots of stuff within the community, and we thought: ‘this would be a really good idea. Perhaps this is something we could replicate in Chard’.
READ MORE: Community cafe hosting pay-what-you-can Christmas lunch
Mr Baker and his fellow volunteers originally envisioned the waffle house as a pop-up space, which would occupy the Guildhall on Fore Street (where the town council holds its meetings) for one morning a week.
When this proved logistically unviable, they began looking for empty shops within the town centre – and after a matter of weeks, they found their new home at 6A Holyrood Street.
Mr Baker said: “It’s quirky – there’s something about it. You’ve got disabled access downstairs so you can kind of take pretty much everyone.
“We ended up signing a short term lease for for here and then started working with people like social services to see what we could do to help families and children out.”
Before the waffle house formally opened in October, Mr Baker and his team held a couple of taster sessions, selling waffles from a gazebo in the town centre – and it was this experience which brought the issue of loneliness to the forefront.
He explained: “We had a chap that come to us who said: ‘I come into town seven days a week and I walk around town – I keep walking around in a circle, just because I want to talk to someone.
‘I have a couple of people I speak to and then I go home – ‘cos if I don’t do that, I just sit home all day and I don’t speak to anyone.’
“We wondered how many other people are doing the same kind of thing.
“Jenny [Kenton] come up with the idea of the community table and having somewhere where you can just turn up if you’re by yourself and you just want to sit down and talk.
“You haven’t got to buy a drink, you don’t have to do anything, you can just turn up and talk to someone and just have some company – and be somewhere where it’s warm inside and you’re not alone.”
Mr Baker said he felt loneliness was becoming more of a common issue in light of changing family dynamics, the modern workplace and the long-term impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
He explained: “I think we’re more aware of loneliness now. When we were young and growing up, you had a lot more time at home with your families – I remember my mum only used to work part-time and my dad would work full-time, so you always had family things around.
“These days, most people work full-time, you have less time to spend with people – and covid didn’t help, I think I isolated a lot more people.
“Everyone’s constantly rushing and busy and doing things and I think that hasn’t helped.”
Chard’s location near the border with Devon and Dorset can make it difficult for people unable to drive to Yeovil or Taunton to access local services when they need it – something Mr Baker and his wife have experienced in their role as foster carers.
He said: “All the contact centres and everything that you need are in Taunton and Yeovil – so children never get to spend the time they really want to spend with family because people you spend so much time travelling.
“We work quite closely with social service within our ‘family room’ at the waffle house, which we use as a playroom as well for anyone that wants to use it.
“That means that anyone in the Chard area can come and use it and we don’t charge them.
“It’s about bringing all that kind of stuff together. We stuck the idea of waffles the same as Axminster because it had that double meaning – the talking and the food.”
In addition to providing a base for social services and local parents, the waffle house has been running ‘kids eat free’ services during half term, which have proved hugely popular with households struggling to make ends meet during the ongoing cost of living crisis.
Mr Baker said he’d been “overwhelmed” by the level of support shown by the community, whether in volunteers giving up their time or people buying vouchers to allow those less fortunate than them to get a hot meal.
He said: “It just seems to be going from strength to strength, which has been really positive really.”
The waffle house currently has three paid employees (including its manager Bleu Gover) and five volunteer governors, including Mr Baker and Mrs Kenton, each of whom do at least one shift a week.
In addition to the volunteers directly involved in running the enterprise, others will come in to run individual events or services – including the local village agents, who can signpost people to the services they need.
Mr Baker said: “We’re working with Holyrood School and the Duke of Edinburgh scheme to to bring students in to do stuff.
“We’re kind of happy to have anyone that really wants to volunteer and help – whether someone just wants to come in and sit and talk, or if they want to help serve food.”
While many cafés and other small businesses in Chard may be hit by the planned rise in employer national insurance, the waffle house’s future is relatively secure.
Because of its small size, turnover and its status as a community interest company (CIC), it qualifies for business rate relief.
Mr Baker said: “National insurance is going to have bit of an impact, but we’re hoping to absorb all of that.
“What we don’t want to do is to become a venue which people can’t afford to use. The idea is that it is available and affordable to everyone.”
The waffle house is currently open five days a week between 9am and 4pm – with discussions ongoing about community groups being allowed to use the building for meetings, workshops and private functions outside of these times.
The waffle house is working closely with the Chard Community Hub, based at the bottom of Holyrood Street, to ensure that the community’s needs are being met.
Mr Baker said: “We’ve had lots of conversations with lots of people, and I meet once a term is with the Community Hub, Forefront Community Church and South Chard Churches.
“We meet once a month maybe to make sure that we’re capturing anything we need to, we’re not overlapping, and where we are overlapping that we’re kind of working with each other.
“Once once people start to talk, they open up and they trust you, and then you’re then able to say: ‘Are you aware that there’s this service available to help you?’
“You pick up quite a few things where people have got housing issues or benefit issues and so on, and we can either add that to our casework or signpost them in the right direction.”
To find out more about the waffle house, including how to get involved as a volunteer, search for ‘Chard CommuniTea Waffle’ on Facebook.
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