How City University is supporting the community one coffee at a time
Sodexo has been partnering with Change Please since 2018, where social enterprise and coffee expertise blend. Change Please brews award-winning coffee and 100% of the profits go to changing the lives of people experiencing homelessness. Read our case study to know more about our partnership.
Thousands of students pour through the doors of City, University of London each term-time morning, many of them grabbing that kick start cup of coffee on the way to their first class. But the particular blend sold here brings with it an extra feel-good factor to help students start their day.
When Sodexo’s Contract Director Justin Walwyn was looking to refresh the coffee offer in the university’s highest footfall café outlet, The Coffee House, he was keen to explore avenues that offered great taste and visual appeal, yet also delivered a social impact. One issue that was particularly on his mind was homelessness.
“Travelling around London you see people on the streets and don’t really know what you can do to help,” says Justin. Then he discovered Change Please at a business meeting and got in touch with the founder, Cemal Ezel. At that point the enterprise was a new kid in town, but in the space of three years it has grown from one van in Covent Garden to an international name present in eight countries including the USA, France and Germany, supplying businesses including airlines, gyms and hospitals.
Where social enterprise and coffee expertise blend
Change Please empowers and trains people experiencing homelessness to be baristas, whilst paying them the Living Wage, helping with housing, therapy and onward employment. Trainees are referred by homeless charities and all complete three months’ fully paid work experience in one of the 15 Change Please outlets around the UK, or 65 partner businesses who work with them. They are then supported for a further six months. Change Please’s unique business model is about employment first and the belief that everyone deserves an opportunity to change their lives for good.
City, University of London was the first university location to support Change Please and Cemal says universities are game-changing outlets. “Students are our future leaders, future teachers – they are a socially minded generation.
“The impact of our partnership with Sodexo at City has been something I could never have imagined. The students can see how they’re supporting their immediate community. They could be coming out of the tube every morning, seeing the same person on the streets, but three months later that person could be serving them their morning coffee. When you speak to the students it becomes clear how much they value the option to support an organisation like ours through the simple everyday act of buying a coffee.”
In 2019, 360 people were helped out of homelessness by Change Please and with the need to recruit to the hospitality jobs market more severe than ever there are lots of job opportunities to fill those gaps. “The aim is to help 500 people a year going forward,” says Cemal.
"If we can just get a small proportion of coffee drinkers to simply change where they buy their coffee, we could really change the world.”
Cemal Ezel, Founder of Change Please.
Social value in action
Justin admits that, for Sodexo, it was initially a gamble, but one that has really paid off. “We could have taken an easier route and simply kept a high street brand of coffee in the café space. So this was a leap of faith but I knew it had huge potential, and provided a great opportunity to do something good.
“We talk about social value, but what it is, how can we make that impact? For us at City, partnering with Change Please shows tangible evidence,” he says. “The students are really engaged with it, they understood the purpose from that start, they’re on board with the message.”
Justin and the Sodexo team at City hosted one of Change Please’s trainees in 2019 and the experience they gain is invaluable in helping people experiencing homelessness make long term changes.
Alessandro, who started as a trainee and is now a mentor barista at Change Please says: “Working with Change Please gave me the opportunity to improve my skills as a barista. Change Please’s mission motivates me to do the very best I can every day. We all have to work but if you work for a good cause, it makes waking up every morning a lot easier. I’m looking forward to this new and exciting challenge.”
Tracey Hughes, head of facilities management at City, University of London is in no doubt of the positive impact it’s had. “Having Change Please at the university is more important now than ever. Watching the increased homelessness on the streets of London as a result of the pandemic has been heart breaking. Change Please allows us to further support our work with the community and that of our students, who could at any time find themselves in the same situation. We are very proud to support such an initiative as part of our focus on social value.”