Vision: View of mural of bird and café, Katie making coffee and view of Birds & Beans Community Café sign.
Katie Stefani - Operations Manager, Birds and Beans Café
'So we are a community drop-in centre.'
'Our goal is to enrich people’s lives by meeting their needs, but also giving them access to courses to upskill them.'
Vision: View of Rameez preparing coffee. View of Katie making coffee.
'You know we have community lunches as well where people can come and have a meal and have a chat to community members like themselves, and have a chat to us.'
Text: The Suburban Revitalisation Program: Providing nearly $2.5 million of support to help Reservoir thrive.
Vision: View of café and Birds & Beans Café sign on side of building. View of Katie making coffee.
'We’ve done training with women that have escaped domestic violence, we’ve also worked with neurodivergent adults and giving them access to a really easy friendly café where they can get some work experience.'
Vision: View of Rameez preparing coffee.
Rameez - Participant, Birds and Beans Café
'I’ve learned to make coffees.'
'I’m meeting new people.'
'It’s fun to come to the café.'
Vision: View of Birds & Beans Café sign and Katie making coffee.
Katie Stefani - Operations Manager, Birds and Beans Café
'We want make sure that they know their rights when it comes to working in hospitality, they know what their award rate should be, so we really want to set them up with the knowledge that they need to go into the workforce and be able to advocate for themselves.'
Vision: View of the Birds & Beans café.
Text: Through the Suburban Revitalisation Program, Reservoir Neighbourhood House was granted $60,000 to improve the training café.
'It allows us to expand, and it allows us to do more of this that we really love and to have the café open, you know, longer hours and on days that when maybe the House isn’t open.'
Vision: Close-up view of café building.
'We were able to add some facilities as well as, like, storage, and even, like, a dishwasher for us which was really nice, so things like that that maybe other people might not see as really important but it’s so important to us.'
Vision: View of Katie making coffee and view of bird mural and close-up view of coffee cup.
'As we’re, you know, two years in it’s become a really familiar place for them to come and they get to know each person that we train up in the café, and, you know, we remember people’s names and what they have and I mean that’s why we call it a community café because ultimately it belongs to all of us.'
Vision: View of ‘Pay it Forward’ jar and close-up of coffee poured.
The Victorian Connection, people, communities and the economy. For more news and stories go to connection.vic.gov.au
Text: The Reservoir Revitalisation Board is a partnership between: The Victorian Government, City of Darebin, Local community organisations and representatives supporting local economic and social outcomes.
Victoria State Government / The Victorian Connection. Authorised by the Victorian Government, 1 Treasury Place, Melbourne.
For the full copy of this story please refer back to Reservoir's Birds and Beans Cafe offers breakfas, lunch and training
