NANA: A café for nanas, run by nanas, seeks crowd-funding
NANA Comfort Food and Craft Café takes to KickStarter to raise money for toilet conversion in east London
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.The crowd-sourcing website Kickstarter has been used to fund everything from a giant flammable brain at Burning Man festival to life-changing orthopaedic limbs for stroke victims.
Now a social enterprise in east London is using the site to raise £15,000 to open a “NANA” café run by “lovely” older ladies, for other older ladies.
The NANA Comfort Food and Craft Café in Clapton, east London, will be housed in a derelict Victorian public toilet in partnership with a local preservation trust. The grandmothers from NANA aren’t going to be dancing to the waltz, knitting or organising tea dances though.
“Our nanas don’t want to be labelled as ‘silver’ or ‘senior’. Obviously they are all over a certain age, but they are the baby boomer generation and they want something different from their retirement,” NANA community manager Yasmin Harrison, 25, told The Independent.
The idea for a community group based around grandmothers came about when NANA founder and social entrepreneur Katie Harris realised many older ladies in Clapton had skills but lacked the confidence to put them to good use.
“We found that there were hundreds of older women with all sorts of skills and who can cook, do crafts and look after kids, but don’t think they can teach anything or can easily contribute to society,” added Harrison.
The group previously operated a pop-up café out of a local pub where volunteer grandmothers offered free childcare to local parents and served “traditional home-cooked favourites”, including “dippy egg and soldiers, massive sandwiches, hearty soups and dangerous amounts of tea and cake.” After three months each volunteer grandmother is entitled to a small share of the profits “in recognition of their service.”
Earlier this week Independent columnist Grace Dent backed the fundraising drive. She Tweeted: “I love this idea. Nana. A cafe ran only by Nanas.”
So far Nana Comfort Food Café has raised around £6,000 of its target to help refurbish its former public convenience, install solar panels and create an outside area. The deadline for donations is Tuesday 1 October.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments