Glasgow Airport’s FlightPath Fund has awarded £3,700 to help a social enterprise providing mentoring and skills-based training to establish a new community coffee shop.
Glesga Roasters will use the award to set up a coffee shop in Bishopbriggs that will work with people in recovery and rehabilitation to help build their confidence, get them work ready and become professionally qualified coffee roasters and baristas. Following this, Glaega Roasters clients are then fully integrated into the workplace placements before moving into full-time employment.
The £3,700 made available by the FlightPath Fund is being used to help furnish the new coffee shop at Bishopbriggs Community Church, where Glesga Roasters is based.
Duncan Stevenson, Glesga Roasters Operations Manager, said: “This award from the FlightPath Fund is very welcome and will ensure we can properly furnish the coffee shop, which we hope will be real asset to the local community and an ideal training base for our baristas.
“The team at Glesga Roasters would like to take this opportunity to thank the Fund’s committee for supporting our work in the Bishopbriggs area and beyond.”
Run by a team of 12 volunteers, Glesga Roasters also trades directly and fairly with coffee growing cooperatives in Rwanda, DR Congo, Brazil and other countries in the global south.
More than £90,000 is being made available by the FlightPath in 2022 and the Fund’s Committee is continuing to urge neighbouring groups and organisations to submit applications.
The FlightPath Fund’s Committee is keen to hear from and support sustainability-themed projects aimed at improving the environment in the communities local to the airport.
The FlightPath Fund’s committee, which includes elected representatives from each of the four local authority areas, meets on regularly throughout the year to consider all applications made and to allocate any agreed financial support.
Councillor Rosie O’Neil, who sits on the FlightPath Fund committee on behalf of East Dunbartonshire Council, said: “Glesga Roasters is a fine example of a community enterprise doing fantastic work both at a local level by supporting some of our most vulnerable citizens learn new skills and by ensuring coffee farmers in some of the most deprived parts of the world get a fair deal for their hard work.”
The next meeting is on June 17 and applications must be submitted no later than three weeks prior to the meeting. To find out more about applying for funding support, visit: FlightPath Fund | Glasgow Airport and download the application form and our funding guidelines.
To find out more about Glesga Roasters click here.