Liberty Tea Rooms and Community Hub to Expand

Popular Hemel Hempstead charity, Liberty Tea Rooms and Community Hub, is expanding with help from leading local housing association Thrive Homes and their outreach programme, Thrive Give.

As a leading professional landlord providing affordable homes across Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire, Thrive Homes is keen to support local charitable organisations that make a real difference to Thrive customers and their wider communities.

Thrive Give awards funding to several local charities every year and Thrive’s donation will support Liberty’s founders Owen and Kerry-Anne Cooper to launch the Liberty Academy, a barista training programme for local residents.

Liberty Tea Rooms and Community Hub was founded in 2013 by Kerry-Anne and Owen Cooper and was an instant success. The award-winning charity charges nothing for its food and drink, relying entirely on customers to make donations through their Honesty Box. Primarily staffed by volunteers over 18, people offer their time and develop hospitality skills, as well as social skills and confidence.

Many volunteers then go on to find paid employment. Christians Against Poverty, based at Liberty Tea Rooms, provides a free Debt Counselling service to offer a way out of debt for local residents. On average they are seeing one family find liberty from debt every month. They also provide free Money Management courses and Life Skills courses. The invaluable support which Owen and Kerry-Anne have offered to local residents struggling with the rising cost of living and in need of a warm, welcoming place to be, has made Liberty Tea Rooms the perfect charity for Thrive’s grant.

Kerry-Anne Cooper, co-founder of Liberty Tea Rooms, said: ‘People are extremely generous at heart. When they see something that can help people, they will take advantage of it. We just want to give people the opportunity to give. The character and community ethos at Liberty Tea Rooms means everything to us and over the past ten years, we have watched so many of our volunteers grow in confidence and re-enter employment. We want the Liberty Academy which, thanks to Thrive’s generous donation, we can launch in 2023, to offer barista training to everyone of all ages.

‘We have been very impressed with our partnership with Thrive. Not only have they provided much-needed funding to enable our charity to run training courses for our volunteer team, Thrive have also taken the time to advertise the free empowerment services we offer our community. Thank you Thrive for helping continue to make a difference and to be a place of hope in our community.’

Fiona Frost, Marketing Communications Business Lead at Thrive Homes, said: ‘We were delighted to support Liberty Tea Rooms and Community Hub. This charity and their work adds value to the local community. Partnerships with charities like this are immensely important to Thrive and we are excited to see the Liberty Academy unfold.’

To find out more about Liberty Tea Rooms and access their invaluable services, head to www.libertytearooms.co.uk.