Revival Food & Mood receives support from Canterbury City CouncilRevival Food and Mood check presentation with Deborah Haylett from Revival Food and Mood, Ali Small from Canterbury City Council, Dr David Palmer from East Kent Mind and Councillor Connie Nolan

The leadership team from Revival Food and Mood was delighted to receive a cheque recently from Canterbury City Council for over £9,500. The money will be used to support young-person provision in the area. Cllr Connie Nolan (Cabinet Member for Community Engagement) visited the café on the High Street to present the cheque to Revival Executive Director Deborah Haylett.

Revival Food & Mood is a family-friendly café and mental health hub on the High Street in the heart of Whitstable. Revival was first founded in 2016, but opened the doors of its new home in 2023 to rave reviews.

The unique, exciting and forward-thinking initiative aims to promote wellbeing, transforming lives through good food and music – creating a thriving local community where everyone feels welcome, nourished, connected and able to imagine and create a better future.

Speaking about Revival Food & Mood, Cllr Connie Nolan said: “It has been wonderful to talk to Deborah and David about the fabulous work that Revival is doing and I am so pleased that Canterbury City Council has been able to support their work.”

“I think that is so important that what they are doing is actually listening to young people and taking on board what young people want rather than giving them what they think they need – because it’s a two-way street.”

Revival Food & Mood Executive Director Deborah Haylett said: “We were delighted to receive a cheque from Canterbury City Council, presented to us by Cllr Connie Nolan.

“The funding that Canterbury City Council has provided will support our young person provision, ensuring that we are able to continue to develop our young-person led initiatives and provide an interesting, creative social space for the under 25s. This demographic has experienced social disruption like no previous generation and research has shown that the Canterbury District has a high rate of loneliness amongst 18–24-year-olds. Revival is now able to offer opportunities for social interaction, skills development and creative projects, led by young people for young people, in the heart of the community.”

Cllr Connie Nolan continued: “We are in a very interesting environment at the moment, because we are post Covid, so a lot of young people haven’t had the social interaction that normally happens. We are in a period of cuts and everybody is talking about how desperate things are. It was lovely to be able to say here’s a cheque and thank you so much for the work that you are doing – it’s really needed. I think your project is absolutely fabulous.”

(Pictured are (left to right): Deborah Haylett, Ali Small from Canterbury City Council, Dr David Palmer from East Kent Mind and Councillor Connie Nolan)

For more information about Revival Food & Mood, visit their website at: www.revivalkent.co.uk/ or follow them on Instagram at Revival

CCC grant to Revival from Revival Food and Mood on Vimeo.