FirstLight Trust is one of Hawick’s best kept secrets delivering a superb cup of coffee and legendary homemade cakes and scones, but their Café Hub has so much more to it than just ‘good coffee’.
FirstLight Trust opened its doors in Hawick in 2018 and owes so much to the funding that local Trusts and Foundations gave to get them up and running, enabling them to provide vital support to veterans of the Armed Forces and Emergency Services and the local community.
So, what does coffee and cake do in reality? And how does it support FirstLight Trust?
It is all in that cup of coffee…
Redemption Coffee (the supplier used by FirstLight Trust) supports the training of prisoners in becoming coffee roasters and baristas. Additionally, Redemption works closely with coffee growers to ensure that working conditions, and payment for the coffee beans is equitable and fair.
Supporting FirstLight by buying coffee and cake from the Hawick Café Hub provides income to help support the hundreds of veterans who come seeking aid with homelessness; mental health issues; loneliness; family problems; debt and ill health.
Since we opened our doors the Hawick Hub
- Has had over 14,ooo visits by veterans to our hub
- Has supported veterans 700 times to take part in activities to improve their physical and mental wellbeing
- Has provided many hours of therapy and counselling
- Provided hundreds of welfare/wellbeing parcels
- Worked with veterans over 2000 times on a 1-1 basis to develop any support needed
Following the pandemic our Café Hub is geared up to continue delivering support to veterans and their families, whilst being an open door to our amazing local community – after all the support and generosity of Teries is legendary. We are therefore inviting everyone to become a part of the cycle of support within the Hawick community by simply enjoying an excellent cup of coffee!
FirstLight Trust would like to say a very public ‘Thank You’ to the individual organisations who have been such a part of the support we are able to deliver: the Veterans Foundation, the Lottery Awards4All, Scottish Veterans, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons, Aldi, The Communities Mental Health & Wellbeing Fund, the Swire Foundation, the Armed Forces Covenant Trust and the University of Edinburgh.
CEO of FirstLight Trust, Dorinda Wolfe Murray says,
“without these incredible organisations and people we would be unable to deliver the vital support and the much-needed lifesaving (literally) work that we do. In huge appreciation for what the Hawick community has done to support our work, the first 20 people to bring this article into the Hawick Café Hub will receive a free cup of coffee of their choice. As you support us you enable us to carry on supporting those who so desperately need it”.
The FirstLight Trust Café Hub in Hawick is located at 1-3 High Street,
We are open Monday to Saturday 9am-4pm,
To find out more about the work that we do please visit our website, follow us on social media or contact somebody from our team.
CALL: 01450 218647 EMAIL: hawick@firstlighttrust.co.uk
