Dāna Café in Crookes has called on its community to support them in keeping their doors open whilst financially on the rocks.

The café originally opened in 2017 due to the support of the Buddhist community in Sheffield, in return the café was named ‘Dāna’ which means ‘generosity’ in Sanskrit to honour the generosity of those who helped open it. 

Amalasiddhi Silva, 32, the manager of the café, said: “Our ethos is looking after people, they are the main priority. We are creating something here that we are both benefiting from, this is an opportunity to support a project who does things differently.” 

He added: “Closing feels so wrong because there is so much love in this place.”

In June 2022, Dāna reached a higher VAT threshold and had to start paying 20% of all their takings to HMRC.

This sudden additional expense every three months has depleted all of the café’s reserves and threatened closure as Manager Amalasiddhi Silva was forced to take out a loan to cover the businesses costs.

Mr Silva, 32, wrote on his crowdfunding campaign: “As far as we can see we have two options: we sell the business, pay our debts and move on; or we call for help from our community and push on.”

The legislation surrounding VAT on food means that Mr Silva often has to pay out 20% in his tax bill that he does not make back in profit. 

Mr Silva called for more government support, criticising the systematic issue which closes a lot of small businesses. 

He said: “We are not getting enough government support, all we have is each other.”

On the café’s Crowfunder, Ruby Chandler, a supporter, wrote: “Dāna is a beautiful cafe and absolutely deserves a little push from the community to stay open with always amazing staff serving delicious food and drink in a lovely atmosphere.”

The team at Dāna have launched several initiatives on social media to fundraise for the café including cutting off their hair for donations and launching regular appeals which has raised them £3,277 of its £11,000 target so far.

Dāna’s customers recommended the fundraiser to Mr Silva and his team as they wanted to keep the community hub alive. 
For more information, click here: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/save-dana-cafe#start