By Arabella Moore-Smith (Lingo Magazine)
Often seen in the hands of students, locals, and commuters in Nottingham is a cup of coffee. There is a kind of forward-moving element to coffee, helping drinkers through the various endeavours of their days.
As such, students including myself from the local church, Holy Trinity in Lenton, have been taking out a coffee cart most weeks into Lenton to give out free coffee. We aim to exist as a hopeful presence that people can engage with on their way to lectures, work, a walk, or even things like hospital appointments.
It has proven to have such an impact on both those receiving and giving out the coffee; so much so that I feel writing of the coffee cart’s impact on the community is essential, and in particular seek to explore why it is so important that students run the cart.
Daniel Bocchetti, 33, originally from Naples, Italy, and the curate at Holy Trinity, says: “The idea was to have an outreach community activity to bless the student community; to let them know that we as a church are here for them; that there is someone in the community that is thinking of them- because church isn’t somewhere that you would just walk into.”
Daniel’s words show the importance of church visibility in the Lenton student and wider communities. To emphasise the church’s warm reception of local students, it soon became clear that students should be the ones running the coffee cart. “I wanted students to see the fruits of it [the coffee cart] themselves,’ says Daniel. ‘Doing it is a different story than hearing it.” And how right he is!
Sam Ross-Russell, 21, fourth-year veterinary medicine student, became involved in organising the cart. He says: “Through doing the coffee cart, I have met people that I wouldn’t normally have met. It has changed, just in general, my view of who is in Lenton; the elderly; the lady with the dog; homeless people.”
Not only has the coffee cart changed our own perspectives of the community in which we study, it is a beacon of hope for others searching for a sense of belonging.
“Church can seem so generational,” says Sam. “This God that claims to be real is actually for you, not some God that has written you off.”
Whenever I run the cart with Sam, and other students at our church, we bond over how genuinely joyous it is to chat to other students and people in the community. It shows the wider community that, in Sam’s words, “Actually, we are a deeply kind and generous generation”; to those our own age and those outside of that. I believe that the coffee cart shows our community that Beyond the Campus, students are genuinely pioneering for good, using their freewill and free time to be faithful to the City of Nottingham.
Scarlett Reeve, 19, originally from Sheffield and a nursing student, who visited the coffee cart, told me that initially, “getting something nice on the way [to lectures] to get me through the day” prompted her to come over to the cart.
“It was really helpful to just have a chat with a stranger and just that small interaction helped a lot… it creates an open space where people can stay and chat or simply get a pick-me-up throughout their day; it can make the biggest difference.”
And through getting to know Scarlett, I realised that her story reveals the importance of faithfulness, dedication and commitment. Without us returning to the same spot just outside Jubilee Campus every week, we simply would not have got to know Scarlett.
Faithfulness is also not the first word that comes to mind when it comes to students. The Lenton Facebook Community Group was recently full of complaints about smashed bottles in Lenton. Resident resentment towards students sharing their communities is a tale as old as time.
But the coffee cart helps show locals that we do indeed care for the wider community, beyond boozing. We are faithful. And I believe that the coffee cart not only shows our community, both students and Gen X, that there are people who care for people outside of their immediate circles, but that the church is driving them in this endeavour for our community. The coffee cart is there to serve other people.
As Daniel comments, “even in the small things, someone knowing that God cares for them even on a rainy day” shows that Beyond the Campus, students are striving for the greater good of our community beyond their own concerns and endeavours. The coffee cart is a microcosm of the hope that we are indeed a loving age group and we have not forgotten about the community in which we study.