Blackburn charity set for growth

A long-established charity in Blackburn is developing the cheapest catering service in Lancashire in order to reach out to more of the deaf community.

Courthouse Catering is a new service developed by the charity with all profits going towards services for the deaf community. The new catering service will work in conjunction with the already established Courthouse Restaurant.

Doug Alker, managing director of ELDS, said: “This new service has been created in line with our already successful restaurant where all profits to go to charity. The service will be run by hearing and deaf staff, but it will show people that deaf individuals are capable of anything a hearing person is.

“The Courthouse Restaurant is already highly recommended and receives great reviews from all customers, therefore we will transfer the customer service skills to our catering service to make it just as successful.

“ELDS always looks at possible business ventures in order to expand, this not only helps fund vital services for the Deaf community, but also allows us to run apprenticeships for young Deaf people in order to help them with creating a successful career in the future”.

East Lancashire Deaf Society has been supporting the Deaf community across Lancashire since 1877. Not only do they support the deaf community but they are actively helping the local community by continuing to grow their social enterprises to help the development of the local area.

Cassie Cain, funding and marketing manager at ELDS said: “Although our current services are greatly beneficial and essential to many, there’s a large part of the population we haven’t yet been able to reach due to lack of finance.

“There’s currently an estimated 11m people in the UK with hearing loss (one in six people), with 45,000 of them being children. We currently help only a fraction of that percentage. "Therefore, it’s essential we continue to grow as a business in order to reach out and be able to provide services to more people, and Courthouse Catering is a step forward to helping those who are missing out on potentially vital services."