With homelessness beginning to become a major issue in towns and cities across the UK, the latest statistics shows that there are 188 individuals sleeping rough on the streets of Wales. This represents a 25 per cent increase on the previous year with over a quarter to be found in Cardiff.
Whilst there are fantastic charities such as Shelter Cymru, the Wallich, Llamau and Huggard that are all looking to solving this problem, last week saw the establishment of a new venture by one amazing individual and his daughter which will support the homeless within the capital city.
Jeff Smith is a former Cardiff Devils professional ice hockey player who, after the death of his best friend Gary Cloonan (whose nickname was Moose), set up Bigmoose as a non-profit organisation with the clear intention of “doing fun stuff that Since then, Bigmoose has raised hundreds of thousands of pounds for charities through various activities including Jeff climbing Mount Everest last year and then organising over a hundred runners to complete the Cardiff Half Marathon to help the mental health charity MIND. Indeed, he hopes to raise over a million pounds for good causes by 2020.inspires people to live better, healthier, kinder lives”.
Now, Jeff and his daughter Chloe are looking to build on their previous achievements and create a new business - the Bigmoose Coffee Shop - that will directly support homeless people in Cardiff.
With homelessness beginning to become a major issue in towns and cities across the UK, the latest statistics shows that there are 188 individuals sleeping rough on the streets of Wales, an increase of 25 per cent increase on the previous year.
The idea came when father and daughter had both been helping to feed the homeless people of Cardiff every month for two years.
At the time, they started by just making tea and coffee but this soon progressed to getting restaurants involved in making food, bringing hairdressers down to cut the homeless people’s hair and encouraging individuals and organisations to collect warm clothes and bedding (with over 1100 bags donated in two months).
Despite this, both felt they wanted to make more of a difference to these people’s lives and so the idea for the Bigmoose Coffee company was born.
Like all great ideas, this one was very simple - they would open a normal coffee shop in the centre of Cardiff but with a difference namely that all the profits from the business would be used to help homeless and other disadvantaged people get back into work and society.
And once the coffee shop is open, Jeff and Chloe will train one, handpicked homeless person in food and beverage who will, after the training course, join the coffee shop team, earn a proper wage and be mentored by Big Moose before then moving on to another job after which the process will begin again with the next homeless person.
Of course, such a venture requires different types of support and a range of volunteers including an architect, quantity surveyor, a lawyer, plumbers and builders, have given their time for free along.
Other volunteers have worked as labourers to get the project up and running and all the coffee shop furniture has been donated by an anonymous restaurant chain. However, the project was at a crucial stage and required a final round of funding to get it off the ground for its opening on March 1st.
That is why Jeff and Chloe launched a Kickstarter campaign last Monday to raise the final £20,000 they need to launch the venture and within seven days, they had raised over £30,000 from 650 supporters which is an incredible achievement.
Certainly, they have both shown that there is support from the public for such ventures that are focusing not on giving handouts to vulnerable people in society but on giving a hand up through training and employment.
And whilst the first Bigmoose Coffee Shop is being opened in the capital city, I would expect that this fantastic concept will soon be replicated in other parts of Wales to ensure that some of those living on our streets get a real opportunity to get back into the job market.