“In the Coffee House, corporate volunteers are sometimes shocked.”

The Coffee House on Haarlemmerstraat is a safe haven for homeless or undocumented visitors. The foundation is a social enterprise largely run by and for participants, along with the necessary volunteers. Together, they provide clean clothing, coffee, lunch, and the cleaning and gardening teams make the environment clean and colorful. On some days, groups of colleagues also come to volunteer for a day. “There is an intense mutual interest between the homeless and the volunteers,” says Roel Piera, the director of the Coffee House.
Employees of companies can through Business Involved, a platform from, among others, the Volunteer Center Amsterdam, looking for suitable volunteer work with many social organizations in Amsterdam. “At our Coffee House, corporate volunteers can, for example, help prepare lunch for about 30 homeless guests or strengthen the cleaning or green teams. For them, it is often an introduction to a completely different world. The world of people who have no roof over their heads and are uninsured. That is shocking for many volunteers.”

The rare outside world

“I sometimes compare our Coffee House to that little Gallic village of Asterix and Obelix. The outside world seems very strange to us, just like Asterix and Obelix talked about ‘strange guys, those Romans’. Here, the cooperation and the economy within the house do function. And outside, for them, it is very deficient or not at all. Of the thirty homeless people with us, about half have no roof over their heads and the other half can (partially) arrange something through emergency shelters or friends, a boat, or something like that. Through us, there are nine sleeping places available elsewhere. When it freezes, people can fortunately make use of the shelter under the Winter Cold Regulation of the municipality. No one should have to die on the street.” Roel gets a bit emotional here. “Unfortunately, that has not been possible for everyone in the past ten years.”

From all corners of the world

“During the first financial crisis, many young people came from Southern Europe. Later, many people came from North Africa and also from Eritrea. Currently, many people are coming from Central and Eastern Europe. We do not receive subsidies for homeless shelters, but the municipality does pay us for street and green maintenance. I feel very proud when I think about which green spaces in the city are designed and maintained by us. The participants always receive a volunteer allowance and breakfast, coffee after two hours of work, and a good warm lunch after three hours of work. Between 9:00 AM and 1:00 PM, it really is a community or a working community that supports each other and takes pride in the work.”

We achieved that together.

“The people from companies often have only two days a year in which they are allowed to do volunteer work from their employer. These are various companies such as Booking, Liberty Global, JAM3, Phillips, etc. It is important to find well-defined tasks that benefit them and us as well. When the corporate volunteers help out on the street, they experience what our participants experience. Other corporate volunteers simultaneously cook lunch for thirty people. There is an intense mutual interest between the homeless and the volunteers. Social security in the Netherlands goes very far, but there are always limits. The Coffee House, as well as mosques and churches, operate at that boundary. The volunteers always approach their work with a lot of motivation and commitment. The nice thing about Business Involved is that you can make such good agreements about clearly defined tasks, dates, times, finances, goals, and commitment. There is a lot of appreciation for each other, and you always experience successes and victories together. The feeling: we really accomplished this together!”

It will always be fine

“Sometimes we get 15 to 20 corporate volunteers all at once. Then we come up with a nice green project, for example. Like assembling and planting thirty steel green bins together. The involvement of the homeless is the constant. The occasional volunteers are larger in number, but it is quite a challenge to manage all those ad hoc tasks effectively. But at the Koffiehuis, it always works out. Every day, everything works out again.” Roel smiles contentedly.

Interested?

On the website of the Coffee house find out more about this special project.
If you want to make an impact with your company, look here. And of course, you can also check at our consultation hours and the job bank, for many more other fun volunteer jobs. Photos: Jackie Mulder
Interview: Thecla Groot Koerkamp