The Charlatans frontman Tim Burgess is volunteering at Liverpool cafe helping homeless

Paper Cup Coffee, based in Queen Square supports Liverpool’s homeless community

The Charlatans’ frontman Tim Burgess has offered to do a stint making coffees at a Liverpool café which supports homeless people.

He will be working as a volunteer barista for the day on Thursday December 1 at Paper Cup Coffee in Queens Square.

It’s not his first show of support for the not-for-profit café, which opened in February to give homeless people hospitality experience and help get them back into work.

Earlier in the year, the Salford-born singer paid for hundreds of free coffees to be given away to celebrate the release of his latest album Typical Music.

Paper Cup co-founder Michelle Langan says having Tim at the café will be a big boost for them and for customers.

“We don’t know how Tim found out about us, but he started following us on Twitter and we followed him back, then few months ago he asked if he could put some money behind our till and give people free coffees at the time of the album release,” she says.

“When he was playing in Manchester on his tour, I messaged him to say, ‘next time you’ve got a gig in Liverpool you should come in and see us’. Never in a million years did I expect him to say he’d come in and actually work in the café. 

“But he got in touch a few weeks ago and told us he was thinking about coming to Liverpool to do a stint in the shop which was amazing,

“Obviously it’s a skill being a barista, it’s not easy, but our manager is really good and he’s trained our staff in the shop, so I’ve got no doubt he’ll be able to show Tim how to do everything and I’ve promised to pay him in coffee and cruffins!”

In addition to grinding the beans and getting the perfect pour, Tim’s also promised to sign takeaway coffee ups for fans in return for an extra donation or a pay-it-forward.

Michelle says it’ll create a great atmosphere in the café for staff, volunteers and customers.

“We do have a lot of customers who are homeless so for them as well it’s going to be exciting to come in the shop, there’ll be a buzz around it, and Tim will be there serving coffees and serving them. They’re our customers too so for them to be part of it will be lovely.”

To coincide with Tim’s volunteer day, Paper Cup Coffee will be launching its Christmas gift campaign, creating gift packages which people can donate to someone who is homeless.

Michelle explains:

“We’ve had a lot of people asking what sort of things they can give at Christmas so we’re going to create four different gift packages which they can buy. 

“Because we know what people who are homeless need and what they ask for, it saves on waste. Every year we see people get given five pairs of gloves or six hats and they just don’t need that many, so this will stop people doing good and then it going to waste which is really sad.

“Some of our homeless like to have little radio they can just carry them around with them so that’s one of the things we can put in the packages, little wind-up radios that don’t need batteries.

“We’ll buy everything, put the parcels together and wrap them, and people will be able to choose when they come in if they want to buy a person who’s homeless a present for either £5, £10, £15 or £20.

“We’ll have our tree up with all the packages underneath and then on Christmas Eve our homeless customers will be able to come in and get their present.”