Terang's Acorn Cafe has found itself a good home

What was once a dark and cold maternal child health centre is now a bright cafe with a warm atmosphere.

The Little Acorn Cafe opened in December and is run by disability services provider, Cooinda Terang. The purpose of the cafe is to provide people with a disability the opportunity to develop hands-on skills.

But as Ms Harris says it’s a business that should make money.

“It needs to make money,” she said. “It’s a business. We’ve invested a lot of money in it.

“We’re a bit different and we didn’t want to have the same business as someone else and that’s why we don’t sell pies and hot chips. We’ve based it on healthy food options.

“It’s taken a while to make it profitable… but May was our busiest month and we actually broke even so that was good.”

Ms Harris said since the cafe opened the 10 participants who work at the cafe had blossomed. “We have two participants working every day so that might be in the morning or afternoon or all day,” she said.

“Those two participants are working each day with two or three other staff members.”

Ms Harris said the cafe also had students from nearby schools doing hospitality training which introduced young people to Cooinda and working with people with a disability.

Cafe manager Jenny O’Keeffe said she’d seen the participants grow in confidence. “A lot of them were nervous when we started, and I was too,” she said. She said they had probably all become more confident as they established their routines.”

Ms Harris said the cafe provided participants with the ability to speak with people in the community, develop customer service skills and, most importantly, develop their confidence and self esteem. 

“One of our missions is to support people to participate fully in their local community,” she said.  “What better way than to be based right here and have that community engagement.”