The launch event of a new ‘coffee and wellness cafe’ in Torfaen saw people queuing outside yesterday morning (Sunday 15 June) before it opened.
Mental health charity Tidy Butt has opened the new centre off Greenhill Road. The charity is run by Matthew Creel, Keziah Green, and Rhys Thomas.
Matthew told Cwmbran Life that ‘Grounded – Coffee & Wellness Cafe’ has been “built by the community for the community.”
He said: “We were very lucky over the last 18 months to two years to be able to access a little room upstairs in what used to be a former construction yard. AP Waters kindly let us use the space and we’ve kind of grown from there.
‘A great opportunity’
“I was coming down the stairs one day and the former Fast Fit Tyres was moving to Cwmbran and I thought this could be a great opportunity for us to be able to create a space in the community where people come along, they can build connections, they can feel part of something.
“They can [also] access some of the support services that we offer as an organisation, whether it be through our community events or whether it be through our therapy centre now, which we’ve got the pleasure of calling our Little Lee Therapy Centre.
“So the guys from Fast Fit Tyres, they’ve gone to Cwmbran, so as a result, we very naively thought we were going to create some community space within the matter of a few weeks.
“However, it was a lot more work and a lot more love and dedication.”
The venue has taken around a year to get ready to open.
‘Amazing response’
Matthew said: “Such an amazing response by the community. We’ve had so many people help us. They’ve donated not only their time and materials, people have donated so much of their effort and their trade.
“They’ve come here, they’ve worked on the weekends and evenings.
“So we like to know that this space has been built by the community for the community.”
Tidy Butt started in 2020 as a Facebook group. Their counselling services has grown from around five to ten sessions a month, to now giving support through between 40 and 60 session a month.
Matthew said: “We’ve got a number of different people coming along to our community events. So we run open water swims, wellness walks, we’ve got two peer-to-peer support groups, so we run one for men and one for women.
“We’re also starting an LGBTQ peer support group here in the next couple of weeks as well, so all in all, we’ve got a few hundred people coming through the doors every month.”
‘Queuing out of the door’
He described the turnout for the launch event as “amazing” and added: “Honestly, I was upstairs in the office getting changed this [Sunday] morning at about 9.55am and part of me was a little bit nervous whether anybody was going to turn up. I came downstairs at 10.20am and people were queuing out of the door.
“It’s been an incredible turnout. Our vision really come to life. I can’t thank Kes and Rhys enough as well.
“There’s been a massive support network for us. The three of us, when we got together back five years ago, we really created this plan and we kind of created our masterpiece today.
“This is a huge achievement for us and what an amazing milestone for us as an organisation moving forward.”