A TAVISTOCK home health care service is bringing a special community day to the town to discuss the implimentation of a compassionate friends cafe in the town.

This compassionate community day will take place on Tuesday, May 9 at Tavistock Methodist Church on Chapel Street.

It will explore building support and development of compassionate friends for a compassionate cafe in Tavistock; a compassionate community being one in which people in the area look out for others and make a difference to those with a life limiting illness or who are affected by loss. On the day, from 10am to 12.30pm there will be a compassionate friends awareness session, from 12.30pm to 2.20pm lunch with guest speakers including St Luke’s explaining how to set up a compassionate cafe and from 2.30pm to 3.30pm pop up cafe and craft activity.

Lynn Roddy of Home Instead said: ‘Our aim is to establish a Compassionate Cafe in Tavistock going forward by training compassionate friends, followed by regular meetings of the group to support those with a life limiting illness or affected by loss. Bereavement is hard and we don’t want people to feel alone. Here we are introducing people to concept and establishing the cafe, from then we will aim to meet fortnightly at the church running cafe sessions.

‘This has been an aspiration of ours for a number of years and this will be our first engagement with the community to set this up.’

If you wish to attend and will be joining for lunch, contact organisers by calling 01752 964250 or emailing: [email protected]