OKehampton coffee shop, 3 East Street, has set up a new coffee cup rehoming scheme to provide reusable cups to people otherwise unable to afford one.

Under the scheme, people can buy a coffee for someone in need alongside one for themselves, known as a suspended coffee, which the cafe will offer in donated reusable cups.

Rebecca Green, owner of 3 East Street, said: ’There are loads of people who get addicted to buying coffee cups and since we would rather use reusable cups than disposable ones we wanted to do this for those who can’t afford to buy one.

’If you are someone who is struggling to buy food for your family then you are not going to buy a coffee cup. But for those who don’t mind picking one up at a charity shop or just like buying them, you can now buy a suspended coffee for someone in a reusable cup.

’People can keep the cup and use it in the future to make themselves a cup to take to work at home. It’s to cheer people up.’

This is just one of many charitable works Rebecca has done in the past especially in her role as the manager of the Okehampton Community Kitchen.

In December, she organised the Reverse Advent appeal from her cafe through which people put together gift packages for those in need which included care home residents, the socially isolated, charitable organisations and covid bereaved families.

The appeal asked people to put together parcels with up to 24 small gifts in order to replicate the 24 days of advent.

Local organisations also turned their hand towards gift-hunting including Okehampton’s Slimming World and Okehampton Primary School.

It proved to be immensely popular with hundreds referred to the Kitchen for a package. By the time the appeal closed on Christmas Eve, the Kitchen had received over 300 gift parcels.