The team at our Fairburn Mews care home in Castleford have completed an ‘18 cafes in 18 days’ challenge to support residents to re-integrate into the community following the pandemic.
During the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, many of the residents at Fairburn Mews were unable to access the local community due to lockdown restrictions.
Whilst they're excited to get back to doing the things they love in the local community, some were worried about returning to activities that they haven’t done for the past few years.
As restrictions have started to ease, the team at Fairburn Mews wanted to provide a fun and relaxed way of reintroducing people back into the local community.
They decided on the cafe challenge and contacted cafes in the local area that supported the challenge.
"We’d like to say a big thank you to local cafes for making us feel so welcome. During the pandemic, we were all limited in what we could do, and care home residents even more so.
“As things started to open up, some of our residents expressed that they were a bit nervous about going out into the local community again. We thought that this café challenge would be a fun way to build confidence and reintroduce people into the community.”
18 of the home’s 20 residents took part in the challenge and had a brilliant time re-exploring the local area.
One resident, Pat, shared: “It’s so nice to be able to come outside again,” and another, Graham, said: “I feel better about going out now.”
Residents and colleagues from the home, located on Wheldon Road, enjoyed sampling a selection of teas and cakes whilst visiting cafes around the Castleford area, including Queens Mill Tearooms, The Hidden Tearoom, rivers MEET, Birkin Fisheries Tea Room, The Wrinkled Stocking and Stork Lodge Tea Room.
Since the challenge, residents have been invited back to Queens Mill Tearooms to join their community jubilee baking challenge in celebration of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee – and the home is out to win!
List of Castleford cafes visited
We'd like to say a big thank you to all of the cafes that we visited during the challenge.
Day 1: Queens Mill Tearooms
Day 2: The Hidden Tearoom
Day 3: rivers MEET
Day 4: Birkin Fisheries Tea Room
Day 5: The Wrinkled Stocking
Day 7: Birchwood Farm
Day 8: Stork Lodge Tea Room
Day 9: Butterfly Tearoom
Day 10: Ackworth Garden Centre
Day 11: The Carding Shed and Oil Can Cafe
Day12: Chef’s Cafe
Day 13: Bake ’n’ Sarnie
Day 14: Dainty Doris Coffee Shop
Day 15: Costa Coffee
Day 16: The café at Fairburn Mews
Day 17: Flavours Cafe
Day 18: Queens Mill Tearooms
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