by Andrew Chalk
Café Momentum, the project that works with Youth Village Resources to provide practical skills and success values to young men convicted of non-violent offences, held an open house on Sunday night to show the citizens of Dallas what they do.
All the Youth Village programs were represented: dog training, career management, financial literacy, computer programs, culinary arts, safe food handling, horticulture and Café Momentum. Café Momentum is the program that Crave readers are most familiar with, but I learned a lot about other programs as well. Like, all of the dogs in the dog training program are inductees from shelter euthanasia programs. In other words, doggie death row. The program saves them, teaches them to be good pets, and finds them permahomes. The young men in the program are in charge of something for likely the first time in their lives. Small wonder that one of them was quoted as saying “I thought nobody cared what I did so I didn’t care. When I started the dog-training program at Youth Village, I really connected with my dog … and the other kids in the program too. When my dog got adopted, I saw what I do matters. It made me feel real good. I think I want to work with animals, maybe even be a vet someday.” Continue reading
