NEARLY 800 elderly or vulnerable residents had a surprise treat on VE Day thanks to a wonderful idea from the Sanctuary Café in Lymm – a free cream tea delivered to their doorstep!
Sue Eadon and Kath Mellor, who run the café, had the idea to treat the elderly residents of Lymm and District to a free cream-tea with scone, fruit, jam and cream a few weeks ago.
“Our senior residents are the very people who should be celebrating VE Day but many were unable to leave their houses”, said Sue.
They floated the idea of providing free cream teas on social media and, with good feedback, decided to attempt around 200 cream teas. The British Legion then got involved and kindly offered to pay for publicity – 5,000 leaflets delivered to local homes. “But then”, continued Sue the idea just snowballed!” In fact, numbers grew to 400 and continued to the day itself, ending up somewhere around 750.
Although there was no charge made for cream-teas, donations were welcomed and all surplus will be donated to NHS charities and the Lymm Leave No-one Behind Initiative.
The scones were baked (observing all additional hygiene rules in the current climate) by eight bakers and delivered by a small army of volunteers to houses in Lymm and other areas including Thelwall, Appleton, Warrington and Cadishead.
Volunteers had to carefully observe distancing rules but the deliveries resulted in numerous delighted smiles and grateful comments from surprised residents. In some areas including Oughtrington, there was even a VE Day Cream-Tea Party with several residents enjoying the generosity of Sanctuary Café.
“Cream-tea vicars” Jonathan and Chris from Lymm Baptist Church among the volunteer delivery team, while below Alan and Ann Oakes in Lymm enjoy a surprise treat.
VE Day: Brian and Irene Holcroft enjoy surprise Sanctuary Café scones at a “distancing street party” in Oughtrington.
