campaign – GO4 Enterprises | "Cafe On the Rec"

Crowd-funder goes live!

Piter Vera — Thu, 02 Feb 2017 16:08:50 +0000

GO4 has a crowd-funder live on the GoFundme platform. You can donate now by visiting this link.

Street homelessness is rising, so we started a Breakfast and hot meal scheme with our customers and supporters (September 2016) donating £5 for a voucher, it caught on.

We realise this doesn’t fix the problem so we also are now talking to other agencies about acquiring and converting a bus for emergency accommodation, utilising a community facility for showering and night time cafe.

We require on-going funding for the Breakfast scheme and also to initiate the Bus programme.

Currently, we operate free from grants and purely on our commercial interests and patronage of our customers. Please support us as we attempt to significantly reduce the sight of people sleeping in doorways, car parks, tents in and around Colchester.

The Bus Project needs to dovetail with existing provisions, not duplicating or competing with.

For this to get off the ground and to maintain our PayItForward scheme we need your support.

Help spread the word!

GO4 featured on BBC Look East

Piter Vera — Wed, 07 Dec 2016 13:15:34 +0000

BBC Look East News featured GO4 in an item looking at homeless in the region. There was a brief interview with Pete Hope (Director) and the piece is available via the BBC iPlayer here. You can find the part about GO4 at the 14 minutes 30 secs mark.

Almost there!

Piter Vera — Tue, 22 Nov 2016 11:38:34 +0000

We have raised 95% of our target with just 2 days to go! Thank you everyone who has donated to the campaign (and everyone who has given direct gifts too) – we really appreciate your generosity.

Donate to our crowdfunder – just 14 days to go!

Piter Vera — Thu, 10 Nov 2016 10:47:23 +0000

Weʼre raising £600 to provide a nutritional soup bar and cooked breakfasts for homeless and needy individuals over Christmas. There are just 14 days left to reach our target of £600. We are almost there (64% raised) so please spread the word and if you have yet to donate please do so today!

Thank you to everyone who has already donated – it will make a real difference to the lives of vulnerable people in our town over what looks like it will be a very cold winter.

Brave Phoebe goes public on her battle with Anorexia

Piter Vera — Sun, 01 Mar 2015 14:48:12 +0000

One of our regular volunteers, Phoebe Webb, 21, has battled anorexia for years. This last Saturday she bravely went public by not only having a pop-up stall at the GO4 Market Cafe to raise funds for the UK Charity Beat which helps those battling eating disorders like anorexia. She also had a full-page interview in the Gazette on Friday 27th February. On the stall, Phoebe sold hand-decorated tableware to raise funds. Example can be seen in the photos.

Phoebe says in the interview that an “enormous part of of my current recovery process is volunteering at local market cafe, GO4.” She goes on to talk about how GO4 has helped her and also goes into a great deal of detail about her personal experience of battling anorexia. At GO4 we are all proud of her and of her willingness to be so frank about her experiences. She has achieved and a great deal and we really pleased to see the progress she has made since coming to GO4.

If you wish to know more about the work of Beat you can visit their website at http://www.b-eat.co.uk/ Eating disorders are a range of conditions that can affect someone physically, psychologically and socially. They are serious mental illnesses and include anorexia, bulimia and binge eating disorder. Over 1.6 million men and women in the UK are affected by eating disorders.

BEAT offer advice, support and have two helplines:

Adult Helpline: 0845 634 1414 or email help@b-eat.co.uk

Youthline: 0845 634 7650 or email fyp@b-eat.co.uk

Social Enterprise Day – Support your local Social Enterprise

Piter Vera — Thu, 20 Nov 2014 15:22:12 +0000

GO4 is a social enterprise (community interest company) and over the past 18 months or so we have created 16 jobs. Today is Social Enterprise Day so why not Buy Social today. You can pop into the GO4 Market Cafe in Trinity Church and shop in the market or have a coffee and meal in the cafe, knowing that you are supporting a great cause.

With your support today and every day we can create even more jobs, helping many more local people access work experience, training and employment. you know it makes sense!

The Future Tastes Good!

Piter Vera — Mon, 22 Sep 2014 07:22:31 +0000

There are FREE WORKSHOPS available this month across the country. Why not sign up here. Improve your chances of gaining employment in the food industry. Watch the video and hear people share how they benefitted from the workshops – remember they are FREE!

Colchester FoodBank popup at GO4 Market Cafe

Piter Vera — Tue, 09 Sep 2014 08:48:31 +0000

Nicola (GO4) and Linda (FoodBank)

Colchester FoodBank (Charity NO. 1152387) are at GO4 Market Cafe the next 3 days so be sure to pop in. Colchester FoodBank is celebrating its 5th birthday this coming October and there will be a large fundraising event coming up so be sure to check out their website at Colchester FoodBank or their Facebook Page. You can also email them at colchfbank@gmail.com.

If you would like to donate items for the FoodBank they currently need the following items in particular:

Long-life Fruit Juice
Long-life Milk
Tinned and packet puddings
Tinned vegetables
Tinned Meats
Tinned fruit
Pasta Sauce
Tinned or packet potatoes
Tinned Ravioli/Bolognese
Jam/Peanut Butter
Tinned Tomatoes
Biscuits
Lunch Box Snacks
Toothpaste and Brushes
Soap/Shampoo/Razors
Household Cleaning Products

We are members of Social Enterprise UK!

Piter Vera — Thu, 04 Sep 2014 10:16:18 +0000

Social Enterprise UK is the national body for social enterprises. Here is some of the things they do:

Run effective campaigns for members and to lobby on the sector’s behalf
Carry out robust and respected research to help paint a picture of the UK’s social enterprise movement
Build networks between social enterprises
Raise the profile of people and social enterprises in the sector

By being members of SEUK, Go4 benefits from being part of a national network of social enterprises and organisations that support social enterprises and their role in society. It helps to promote what we do and raise our profile amongst a wide audience nationally and internationally.

Also it reassures potential supporters and customers that we are a bona fide organisation.

Our marketing already benefitting from our interns’ hard work!

Piter Vera — Sat, 30 Aug 2014 13:50:23 +0000

Our rating (of our Facebook page) on likealyzer.com has gone up from 45 to 59! This is a fantastic improvement and reflects the impact of making some changes to our marketing. We now make sure we post regularly on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn and this is helping to raise our profile. This is directly related to the efforts made by our intern, Milena, who has been conducting market research the past three months. One of the things she helped identify was the fact that not many people knew who were were and that we needed to focus more on promoting ourselves online. This we have been doing and its starting to pay off! We will building on this in the coming months and monitoring the impact but a hearty ‘thank you’ to both Milena and Andreea who both had good ideas and were very enthusiastic about promoting Go4 to a wider audience. A ‘thank you” too to Janine, one of our traders who puts a lot of time and energy into promoting the Go4 Market Cafe, as well as Go4 in general.