2025 events
As we enter our 15th Anniversary, in 2025 we saw the popularity of the award-winning, pop-up SMILE Community Café rise to a whole new level – which clearly demonstrates our value to the local community. The vast majority of our customers are weekly regulars who welcome socialising in a warm, welcoming and inclusive atmosphere - with free onsite parking and modern facilities, including those for the disabled and their families / support workers.
Everyone involved with the café is a volunteer and we currently operate with a team of 7 – 5 of whom have moderate learning disabilities or mental health issues. We have been as high as 9 volunteers and are always happy to welcome new volunteers – to learn more about volunteering with us – visit this page a scroll down to the sub-heading ‘Volunteers’: www.smile-cafe.org.uk/about
Customers can come in and relax with no pressure to eat and leave and understand that we are not a fast-food outlet – a number often stay for 2 or 3 hours... A home from home? The café can seat up to 60 customers at a time and we provide extra refreshments for all dogs in attendance.
Along with the regular café, we again delivered some additional achievements:
For the 4th unannounced health & hygiene visit, in 14 years, we achieved 5 out of 5 stars yet again.
We managed 2 days of an additional weekend outreach service – supporting Saxmundham Community Festival at the Saxmundham Memorial Field – to provide a dedicated shaded respite spot and refreshment marquee, for the elderly, disabled and mothers / fathers with babies/toddlers.
A free summer Magic 2-hour show, including close-up table magic, for all family generations. Thiis was so popular that customers requested a return visit…
We ran our popular Oktoberfest event with all German food and beer (non-alcoholic).
We held a special celebratory Christmas party and, for a second time, hosted Daniel our profession magician - to entertain our customers as they became merry with the steaming -alcoholic fruit punch!
