By Danielle Kutchel
With good coffee as its foundation, a new social enterprise café in Cranbourne aims to bridge the gap between mental illness and employment.
When L’arte Central opens on Saturday 5 October, it will be the culmination of seven years of dreaming for managing director Drew Gormlie.
He’s got some very specific goals for the café: he aims to be trading at a profit inside of six months and become self-funding in the first 12 months.
He also wants L’arte Central to be ranked 4.8 out of 5 on Beanhunter in the first three months.
But L’arte is about more than just good statistics.
It’s about giving people who have suffered severe and enduring mental health challenges a fresh chance in life and work, and equipping them with the support and training they need to succeed.
Mr Gormlie is no stranger to the challenges that some people in the community face. He is also the CEO and founder of Life! Central, a preventative agency operating in and around Casey with a focus on suicide prevention and intervention, youth support, trauma and other practical support. As well, he is the pastor of Life! Central church.
L’arte Central is responding to a need he saw in the community.
“There’s a statement that I like which is, ‘evil prevails when good men do nothing’,” Mr Gormlie says.
“Our goal is: if we can help people in the community, then our organisation feels like it’s our responsibility to respond to those needs if we can.
“Honestly it’s been less strategic; it’s really because we’ve found these needs have been presented to us in such a way that it’s very hard to avoid them.”
L’arte will function as a commercial café and will have placements for between eight and 20 people at any given time, who will do short shifts across the week to develop their capacity, skills, experience and qualifications through a training program run by Chisholm.
Graduates will have the capacity to work full or part time, go on to other training and pursue goals that they thought were beyond their grasp.
“We want to help people to understand that their value has nothing to do with their experiences, and if given the right set of circumstances and opportunities they can turn that around,” Mr Gormlie said.
Participants will include school-based and mature age trainees, NDIS and work for the dole participants, and will be subject to an intake procedure to be eligible for the program.
As well as training, the social enterprise café will offer art programs for all ages, run by Dr Michelle Sanders, to assist individuals to work through issues they may not be able to verbally articulate.
A studio and gallery space on location will allow for the creation and display of art which can then be purchased by café customers, further supporting the artists.
L’arte Central is located at unit two, 65 Berwick-Cranbourne Rd, Cranbourne East. The grand opening will take place on Saturday 5 September from 7am until 4pm.
