Mat Tandy collecting newly liveried Project Petrock van
Instead of applying for grants to help homeless people find work, St Petrock’s in Exeter has established Project Petrock, a social enterprise business that helps homeless people back into work.
Life and Basic Skills tutor, Keith Johnson at St Petrock’s, told the PRSD: “The idea came from the fact we were seeing so many people who have trade skills but didn’t have a current work record or the belief that they can start again. The funding market is also very competitive and changeable so we wanted to develop a more self-sufficient, commercial solution; the Project Petrock social enterprise was born.”
A social enterprise differs from what people might see as a traditional business because it has social objectives to deliver as the focus of the business; profits are reinvested for that purpose in the business or the community.
Project Petrock offers house and garden maintenance services to customers. All aspects of general house and garden services are currently provided, such as carpentry and joinery, painting and decorating, tiling, garden landscaping, decking and fencing. Project Petrock covers Exeter and the surrounding area with plans to move further afield in time to cover East and South Devon.
The employees are people who are or have recently been homeless and offer them the possibility of learning new skills, the opportunity to re-employ old skills and also, to train other members of the business.
“Members of the project work closely with skilled mentors,” said Keith. “They also receive support from key workers at St Petrock’s.” This combination means they quickly become valuable assets to the business and themselves.
Project Petrock is a co-operative, owned and run jointly by its members. One of the reasons they chose this business model was to ensure the social enterprise business main function never became the raising of money for St Petrock’s.
“We wanted the people who are part of it to become employees and learn how to run a company” says Keith. “One day Project Petrock will be run by people who have direct experience of homelessness and seen how this enterprise can change lives.”
Project Petrock received free business mentoring through a scheme funded by Exeter City Council. Delivered by The Fruit Tree for Business, the scheme supports the start-up and growth of social enterprise and creation of local jobs.
Come and enjoy Devon – book a hotel and get away!
Related posts:
- Social enterprise car washing and valeting service has nationwide aspirations Future Clean, a car washing and valeting service from Exeter-based...
- Opportunity to join community-owned renewable energy co-operative The Devon Community Wind Co-operative, part of the community-owned wind...
- Translation service for an increasingly multicultural Devon The social enterprise translation service Multilingua in Exeter plans to...
