Did you know that Guinea Pigs have their own holiday? It lands on the 16th of July and is known as “Guinea Pig Appreciation Day”. It was introduced by the Canadian organisation “Piggles Rescue” 10 years ago in 2016.
For family-run disability support provider AHH Life Skills, they believe these adorable animals deserve far more than one day of appreciation, the South Australian organisation believes that Guinea Pigs are entirely worthy of a café, Cellar Door and even, a golf course.
Well… Maybe not “entirely”.
After welcoming the beloved Hamdorf location late last year, the first-ever guinea pig café located in the old Cheese Cellar at 91A Mount Barker Road, AHH Life Skills with Wunderbar Farm are expanding their support provider services even further. With the council’s approval, the new projects they are embarking on are a Cellar Door, with a prospective Mini-Golf course on the scorecard too.
“The guinea pig café was such a beneficial undertaking.” AHH Life Skills Managing Director Adelaide Schiblhut reveals. “With the NDIS changing its model for people with disabilities to get ‘work ready’, which is a fantastic push, we have moved with that model to say: ‘Ok, not only will we engage in barista and animal handling initiatives, but we are also going to move into land care and landscaping too.’”
The program for Hamdorf provided its participants with fundamental training leading to a Certificate III in Barista Training, and remarkably, the same strategy is in place for the upcoming Cellar Door and mini-golf course ventures.
“This time we want to do responsible service of alcohol and give people the work skills and experience to be able to attain certificates in RSA and other fields. So, they’ll be working on the vineyard – we have just received Council approval for the development of a Cellar Door, which is really exciting.”
Located at 2179 Mount Barker Road, in beautiful Hahndorf, Wunderbar farm features a 17-acre vineyard that will be an integral part of the education programs. The expansion will involve the café incorporating the Cellar Door element, but this is essentially an early stage of the aspiring enterprise.
“It will be a café / wine cellar, and all of this is approved.” Adelaide confirms – “We are working towards the approval for the mini-golf course yet, we’re considering it landscaping. We won’t touch the vineyard, but the 12-hole mini-golf course plans are awesome.”
What do they involve?
“Its theme is ‘Around The World’ – we will have Rio de Janeiro, the Taj Mahal, and we will be building them as a disability group in our ‘Farm & Day Options’. We have the amazing Adelaide artist Tania Kunze, TATTY K, on board. She will come up with the concepts and get the groups together, then they build the ideas. We are doing an Easter Island head out of Hebel block, for example. It’s a big project, but we are hoping to be open in about a year.
“However, I don’t want to put a timeframe on anything.”
Understandably, there is an immense amount of work to go into these impassioned explorations for
AHH Life Skills and Wunderbar Farm. As Adelaide Schiblhut reiterates though, these life-changing initiatives could not get underway without help from the public.
“The public are coming face-to-face with people with disabilities, and it has all been really inclusive – that’s the goal and we’ve achieved that! The public’s been great and understanding, and I think now we’ve nailed it. None of us had ever opened a café before, and now we can offer delicious food and great coffee!”
How can the public help with these exhilarating new endeavours?
“We are open to suggestions, especially with the idea submissions, if someone suggests a ‘mini-Tokyo’ for the golf course, we’re open to it. Of course, we always love the help of volunteers, so if you would like to get involved, please send us an email at [email protected]”
Watch this space and get ready to tee-off on a new adventure.
Hamdorf Cafe / Cellar Door
Where: 91A Mount Barker Road, Hahndorf
When: 8am – 4pm, seven days | Cellar door coming soon
For more information, click here.
ahh life skills, Barista, cafe, Cellar Door, Disability, Education, Featured, Golf, guinea pig cafe, Guinea Pigs, Hahndorf, Hamdorf, landscape, Landscaping, Mini Golf, vineyard, Volunteer, Wine, Winery
