ANYONE taking a stroll along the Osney Mead towpath received a pleasant surprise this weekend, as scouts offered tea and cake along the riverside.

Youngsters from Oxfordshire Scouts poured drinks and handed out scones with jam and cream at their pop-up cafe in East Street yesterday and today.

The group are fundraising to travel to Kenya next August to help orphaned children, through charity The Nasio Trust.

Unit leader Jacqui Gadd said the team of scouts, 23 in total with four leaders, were "really excited".

She said: "We'll be doing a community project for 10 days but we don't know what it is yet. We might have to build a house or a lake.

"Each scout has to raise £2,500 to go on the trip, so this is the start of our fundraising. The pop-up cafe has gone brilliantly. Lots of people have stopped to sit down."

Scout Morgan Lyes, 15, who lives at RAF Benson, helped out at the pop-up cafe to help raise money for his trip and he said he thought it had gone really well.

He said: "I'm hopefully doing some babysitting as well to raise some more money.

"This trip sounds awesome. I really wanted to do it. We'll be helping so many people. Last year I went to Japan for the World Scouting Jamboree."

Another scout, 16-year-old Holly Barwick from Botley, has only ever been as far as Malta, and said she was really excited to get her first taste of Africa.

She said: "It should be a lot of fun. I'm a bit nervous as I've never been that far from home for so long. I'm going with people I've made friends with so that will be ok, but it will be a shock stepping into such a different community and way of life. But it should be fun."

To help raise money for her trip, Holly will be selling cookies at her school, Matthew Arnold in Botley.

The scouts will be flying to Africa as part of their work with The Nasio Trust, a charity that helps transform the lives of vulnerable children and the communities of western Kenya.

To find out more about the scouts or to contact someone to help with fundraising, visit oxonscouting.org.uk