YMCA 180th Anniversary: Celebrating Our Future – Eden Café
Welcoming new beginnings at Eden, and exciting for the future.
As we celebrate our Founder’s Day for YMCA, our 180th Anniversary. We wanted to look at acknowledging those 180 years that have helped shape what we have become today as well as embrace the wonderful future we have ahead of us.
What better way to do that than to exhibit our partnership with 2Much Passion?
Last month we had a day of celebration that was warmly welcomed by the amazing weather, as our partnering business 2Much Passion CIC and the launch of our Eden Café. This partnership aims to grow our local community and create a central hub for good causes, a safe place to network and create a great community environment.
The partnership with 2MuchPassion began in 2022, seeing Vanessa, managing director, set up a lot of successful initiatives, such as offering free community warm meals, a food pantry and cooking programmes supporting our residents and the community. But now the partnership to be in Eden Full time has been commemorated and celebrated with the Mayor of Birmingham Chaman Lal and the Erdington Constituent MP Paulette Hamilton.
YMCA Heart of England CEO Pauline Tomlinson shared her thoughts on the relaunch sharing what this partnership means for YMCA moving forward: “It was a fantastic opportunity to be part of the relaunch of Eden Coffee Shop with 2Much Passion. We are so pleased to work alongside an organisation that shares our vision for working closely with communities and those most in need.
Eden is shaping up to be a fantastic community facility that creates a gateway into so many services including Stay and Play sessions, Community Pantry, Health and Wellbeing Programmes and so much more – not just for our residents who live on site but for the wider community and neighbourhoods that we serve.
We look forward to a dynamic partnership working closely with Vanessa and her team to make this partnership a productive and visionary one.”
Food was on display for all to see and enjoy provided by Vanessa and her team, but further Caribbean cuisine was on offer, with those in attendance being able to pay for residents to experience the food also free of charge. The essence of Eden is to provide and create opportunities to support the local community and at the start of the line would be the residents we continue to support and provide for.
When speaking to Vanessa, she said “The relaunch of Eden Café has made me feel very proud of the achievements and accomplishments of 2 Much Passion CIC, it is a testament to all the years of hard work which has been rewarded with such a beautiful community café.”
Our partnership started with “much passion in 2022 and Vanessa has described that journey to where she is now. “The journey with the YMCA has been very exciting, from first seeing the kitchen to now running the cafe it has been teamwork all the way, a shared vision of knowing so much more could be happening and us having to tools to deliver has been a perfect match.”
As we enter into a new journey with Eden, we are all excited to see what is to come next from Vanessa and her team she stated, “We have so much planned over the coming week and months to launch a new menu, and community project Food and Move to start in July we are here for the long haul.”
Julia Nolan our Head of Community and Youth Services spoke on how this partnership will benefit the community and services users we provide for. “Supporting the community is at the heart of YMCA and it feels like we are becoming the community hub of Erdington. It’s been a pleasure to work alongside 2MuchPassion, join our skill sets, and grow our service to support more people. It has been such a transformation.”
We’d also like to thank Tom Jackson, Director of Operations for his support in logistics and legalities, Claire Griffiths and Daniel Pennells, Event coordinators, who are integral to the expansion of the partnership within our Chris Bryant Centre and corporate services we offer.
YMCA Heart of England is excited about the future of Eden café and where our partnership with 2Much Passion takes us. And on our Founder’s Day as a whole, we are always excited to see what another 180 years brings for the YMCA.
