A community café is getting ready to re-open on May 17 with a ‘pay what you can’ scheme in place.

The Open Door Community Café will adopt the voluntary payment philosophy as a way to help the community post lockdown.

The menu is the same but the means of payment has changed.

Once people order, they place their money in a donations box rather than pay at the till.

Anyone who wants to pay normal prices can see those on the menu and donations of more than the price will be gratefully accepted by Open Door.

Helen Tribble, projects director, said: “We have been supporting our community in a variety of ways since the start of the pandemic, and have seen just how hard it has hit many people, with loss of jobs, debt, relationship breakdown, and in some cases, homelessness.

“We felt that offering everyone the chance to pay what you can, anonymously, would hopefully take any stigma away from asking for help.

“We understand this has been an extraordinarily difficult time for many people and we just want to say to everyone, ‘you are welcome at our community café.’

“Whether you’ve never been to us before or have been coming to us for years, whatever you can afford to pay, you are welcome.”

The Open Door Community Café is open every Monday, Wednesday and Friday between 9:30am and 3:30pm, located in Church Street opposite the Royal Mail parcel collection office.

Helen said it is open to everyone, with additional support available if needed.

Additional support includes one-to-one support for homelessness, housing, unemployment, debt, domestic abuse, relationship breakdown, parenting issues, mental illness and addiction.

There is also help for counselling, free food/clothes/sleeping bags and baby supplies as well as laundry/showers.

Open Door Exmouth is an independent charity that has been helping those most in need for more than 25 years.

Current projects include the community café and craft room; Haven, ICE (supporting young people at Exmouth Community College), Men’s Shed; Nightshift and Parent Hub (providing one-to-one and group-based support to parents and families).

For more information, visit www.opendoorexmouth.org.uk.