Buy a suspended coffee for the homeless

Have you ever heard of a suspended coffee? Well, I hadn't until I saw a local TV news segment featuring a 'hole in the wall' cafe called Bounce in our CBD where you can pay for a coffee for another person and when enough have been paid for vouchers are then given to a local charity to be handed out to the needy.

I thought that this was a really good idea at the time and made up my mind to buy a few extra 'suspended' coffees if I ever found myself near Bounce but I rarely go to the CBD as it is so difficult to find a park there. However, I couldn't pass up the Lincraft sale recently so headed up from there to Bounce to check it out. It is literally a 'hole in the wall' along the street between Rivers and Cotton-On  and it must be terribly cold for the workers there during our cold winter weather.

There is no seating apart from a bench on the footpath but I presume most patrons just buy their coffee and move on. I take my hat off to the owners as they also train young people from the Toowoomba Flexi School . The cafe will be very popular during National Homeless Prevention Week from the 3rd to 9th August and I am sure will be visited quite often by Nat Spary from The Base

 which runs the only soup kitchen in Toowoomba and Jon Martlew from Rosies - Friends on the Street which works with marginalised people in town. Both men are going to be living on the streets for the week and that is no mean feat in the middle of winter in our city.

Photo by Ian Anderson ~ Used with permission from Nat Spary

This intriguing photo of Nat appeared in the Toowoomba Chronicle last week and he explained in the article that the soup kitchen needed funding in order to stay open and was hoping to raise $100,000 during the week that he and Jon would be homeless. So far $6000 has been donated and hopefully those who read about the plight of the homeless and disadvantaged will be happy to help the men reach their goal. Nat knows what it is like to be living on the streets as he did so at the tender age of 15 as it wasn't safe for him to stay at home any longer. 

So if you would like to donate to a worthy cause, you can do so here. If you live in the region and are near the CBD you can drop off cash at 10 Neil Street, Toowoomba or a cheque can be made out to the BASE and posted to PO Box 2216, Toowoomba 4350. I am sure that any donation, no matter how large or small, would be much appreciated and make those nights spent freezing on the streets worthwhile.

Before I go, can any of my readers identify this succulent. There are succulents and there are succulents and some are nicer than others and I really didn't like this particular one and was wondering whether to pull it out or not.

However, recently I have noticed that it was starting to flower and was interested to see what they would turn out like. Well, they are now opening up and are turning out to be quite pretty as the orange contrasts beautifully with the pink.

I think it might be a keeper after all. :-) I just need to give it a name. Any clues?