Since 2015, Chad Houser has worked toward a recipe for change. The Dallas man started Café Momentum as a way to catch the young people who so many called “throw-aways” and give them a shot at doing something great.
He has worked with more than 900 young men and women, teaching them culinary skills and requiring them to get back into school after they are released from the juvenile justice system.
“So often people talk about Café Momentum as a restaurant of second chances and I think that’s a popular misnomer. If you spend any time with them, you see it’s truly a first chance. That for the first time in their life, they have a chance to make it.” Houser said. “These are opportunities I have been given over and over and over again. I have been allowed to fail and I have been loved through my failures through my entire life. These young men and women are prescribed a life of failure and never given an opportunity to succeed.”
Our conversation with Houser spanned a wide variety of topics on how he hopes his work, through the 12-month program, is helping to pave a better future for young minorities looking for the chance to get on the right side of the law and life.
More importantly, his message to all people about choosing empathy over ignorance.
