When Food Buddies started a year ago we had a vision that we could help cafes and retail premises to become dementia friendly environments.

For the last few months we have been working very closely with the Eastgate theatre cafe to help them work towards this and to check off the requirements of the checklist and gain the status of a dementia friendly environment.  This has required a huge commitment from everyone at the theatre to ensure that all the staff have been trained and that the environment is as dementia friendly as it can be currently, with an action plan for how to make further improvements over time.

For the month of April the Theatre holds a bite sized lunchtime entertainment event once a week aimed at older people, Wednesday’s theme was Jazz music.  We thought that this would be the perfect opportunity to launch the food buddies dementia friendly environment window sticker and handy guide for catering and retail staff about supporting customers living with dementia and set about planning it!

With help from the Eastgate theatre a press release was written and unbeknown to us STV Borders were also contacted and turned up to shoot a piece for STV Borders Lookaround programme, Jan was interviewed outside the café in the cold with the school kids all walking past to get their lunch! (We don’t know when it will be aired yet but will let you know as soon as we do!)

As we are all about food we had to include lunch so were delighted when the Food Foundation very kindly agreed to make the butternut squash & sweet potato soup from our Winter Tips book and some sandwiches for the event.

Around 35 people came along and enjoyed the delicious soup from the Food Foundation, the lovely music from the Gerard Dott Trio and witness the huge achievement of the café in becoming our 1st dementia friendly environment as they were presented with their window sticker.

We can’t thank the Eastgate Theatre & The Food Foundation enough for all their support and encouragement, it was been a pleasure working with you and we are looking forward to lots more exciting projects in the future.

Our handy tip for catering and retail staff along with our winter tips can be found on our website.  If you would like more information about Food Buddies or are interested in becoming a dementia friendly environment please contact Jan on 07732927724 , jan@otbds.org or Christine@otbds.org.