Open Door is the vision of the Selkirk Parish Church family, reaching out to the community to share God’s love through action and welcome, making use of our new comfortable hall and our upgraded kitchen. The Church of Scotland’s “Go For It” fund generously helped us with start up costs.
Open Door’s ethos is to be a place of relaxation, especially for those who might be isolated or lonely in the community. If this project resonates with you and you would like to be involved in any way, please let us know.
Our logo plainly states our aims “food and friendship” and we know that giving people a friendly welcome and time to linger or chat over coffee/lunch is invaluable. Open Door provides excellent value, home-cooked food for the body, and company for the mind and spirit. We opened to the community in early October 2016 and are open on the 2nd and 4th Mondays of each month: 10.30am-12.00 ( coffee/tea and baking) 12.00 – 1.00 pm ( soup and snack lunch). This year, 2019, we are also open for breakfast from 8am – 10am on the first Monday of each month : cereal, toast, porridge, bacon rolls …. and chat.
New ventures feel risky and there are always challenges to meet, but so far our “Open Door” café is going well and we are encouraged by our customers’ comments; “great value and lovely food”, “I fair enjoyed myself”, “great idea for the community”, all good news!
Invite a neighbour or a friend or even consider becoming a volunteer yourself!
Working in partnership with SBC Community Learning and Development team at Philiphaugh, the Open Door team have committed to providing a lunch for children and families every Thursday during the school summer holidays. Where possible, food obtained from FareShare is being used.
a busy room full of happy people eating and chatting
Week 3 (July 18th) report: 40 adults and kids had a ball today with crafts, outdoor activities at the rugby club followed by food. Good to be on holiday from school! Our Open Door cafe volunteers enjoyed chatting, making wooly pompoms and providing food for us all. Thanks to one and all!
Selkirk Parish Church has appointed Jane Stevenson as our cafe manager – and she is doing a great job!
And here is Jane with some of our friendly, hard working volunteers at Open Door. Come and visit us on the 2nd and 4th Monday of the month. !0.30am – 12.00 for coffees then 12.00 – 2.00pm for lunch. Lovely home cooked lunches, home baking , teas and coffee at very reasonable prices. You will be made welcome!
Three of us from Open Door visited Fareshare in Edinburgh last week to meet the Cyrenian staff and volunteers who work hard to process tons of good food destined otherwise for the dump. We were able to have a good conversation about our Open Door and the food we find useful, in quantities that are manageable. They told us that they partner with over 100 projects, delivering about 7,000 meals annually so it’s a major challenge for them to keep us all in mind and get it right for everyone all the time. It’s a big operation! It was a very useful, enjoyable visit and we are increasingly appreciative of our link with the Cyrenians and very glad to be saving waste.
The Cafe is going well. We are very encouraged to be busy and to hear nice things said about the cafe by customers….. “great value and lovely food”; ” I fair enjoyed myself”; “very friendly volunteers”; “great idea for the community”
We’ve had to increase the seating from 36 to 48 places and served 40+ lunches at each cafe.
9 of our volunteers have passed the Elementary Kitchen Hygiene test.
New volunteers from the community have joined our team since we started, and more are always welcome. We’re getting to know each other better and there is a lot of laughter.
We’re opening for coffees/teas and home baking from 10.30, earlier than originally advertised
Thank you for your support and prayers for this venture. Please continue with both!
Sessional Cafe Manager now in post
