(WICHITA, Kan.) — A new restaurant in Wichita is dishing out more than breakfast, the cook's special catfish plate, and barbecue. Youth For Christ's City Life Cafe is giving hope to the young men working in the kitchen, busing tables, and operating the cash register.
City Life Cafe opened Tuesday morning on E. Central. It's operated by Youth For Christ's work program, a group aimed at rehabilitating former gang members. For more than seven years, the work program has helped the young men earn a new start in life through cutting grass, hauling trash, and other jobs.
Roosevelt "Buck" DeShazer, Sr., says he remembers selling drugs and getting in trouble as a boy in Mississippi. The Wichita pastor and Youth For Christ's Dale McMullen are now trying to let at-risk young men know there's more to life than falling back into gangs.
"The reason why they're in a gang is that sense of belonging," says DeShazer. "They get that sense of family, and so what we're trying to do is let them know there is another life. There is another way. There is another family."
