Surrey County Cricket Club have renewed their partnership with coffee company Change Please for major matchdays in 2023.
Surrey County Cricket Club have renewed their partnership with coffee company Change Please for major matchdays in 2023.
Change Please are an award winning, unique, social enterprise – with their stated mission being to end homelessness by selling great tasting coffee.
They help people experiencing homelessness by training them to become speciality coffee baristas, supporting them with everything they need to turn their lives around.
Change Please provide their would-be baristas with a living wage, a job, housing, therapy, a bank account and then ultimately, they graduate into permanent roles in the hospitality and catering sector.
Founded in 2015 by Cemal Ezel, they have grown from a single cart in Covent Garden to a multi-national organisation, active in eight countries, with a training academy and plans to build a new major site in London Victoria to help more of their trainees become successful baristas.
There will be two Change Please coffee carts available – one near the Pavilion forecourt and one near the Alec Stewart Gate – at all Surrey Vitality Blast matches, the England’s Women’s Ashes fixture in July and at the England men’s ODI against New Zealand in September.
For Test matches in 2023, that will scale to four carts on-site at The Kia Oval.
Change please rent their space for the summer like other vendors, but all that money is then donated back at the end of the season, with the money used to assist local homeless charities.
Alex Lewis, Director of Operations at The Kia Oval, said: “I’m delighted to welcome Change Please back to The Kia Oval this year.
“They don’t just provide our attendees with fantastic tasting coffee; they also make a real difference to the lives of vulnerable people. I couldn’t be happier to be supporting them again in 2023.”
Cemal Ezel, Founder and CEO of Change Please, said: “Here at Change Please, we want to accelerate our work to fight homelessness; particularly as it is getting worse for many people and families during the cost of living crisis. With important and valuable partnerships such as this, we can keep getting the resources, support and awareness to help our mission become more of a success…and give spectators at The Kia Oval a chance to give someone another shot at life, just by buying our award-winning coffee!”
To learn more about the work of Change Please, click here
