lifestyles
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Richard Devinki / KANSAN
Welcome to the Jubilee Cafe
Lawrence resident Raymond Williams orders breakfast from Neysa Koury, Iowa City, Iowa, senior. The Jubilee Cafe, which is located in the Trinity Episcopal Church, 1011 Vermont St., serves a free breakfast every Tuesday morning.
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Restaurant-style breakfast program gives homeless patrons respect
First-time patrons of the Jubilee Cafe often think they've come to the wrong place.
The diners agreed, saying that cafeteria meals at homeless shelters were often impersonal and unfriendly.
"I thought I had walked into a funeral or something because there were real cups and tablecloths," one diner recalled.
"Forty people scrambling over trying to get food doesn'tgive you much dignity," a diner said. "This makes so much
"Simple options such as choosing between white and wheat bread gives people a certain amount of empowerment," she said.
Koury, Iowa City, Iowa, senior, said she wanted to open a restaurant-style cafe because patrons were treated with more respect.
The cafe is one of only a dozen free-meal programs in the country and the only one in Kansas that is run like a restaurant instead of a cafeteria.
New patrons are even more surprised when they discover that they have menu choices and that someone is there to take their orders.
"This is a haven away from the daily grind," one of them said.
The Jubilee Cafe operates out of the Trinity Episcopal Church, 1011 Vermont St., and serves breakfast every Tuesday morning to about 40 or 50 of Lawrence's underprivileged, the names of whom have been withheld.
Neysa Koury and Marc Yergovich, both KU students majoring in social welfare, founded the cafe last October. The School of Social Welfare encourages students to become involved in outreach programs.
While menus and decorations wouldn't impress most people, they do the Jubilee customers — the homeless and less fortunate of Lawrence.
The students
The students chose to serve breakfast because it is the only free meal not available to Lawrence's homeless. The diners said breakfast was one of their most important meals.
"It makes a big difference what you can get done during the day," one patron said.
The Jubilee Cafe is financed by donations. The menu typically includes eggs, pancakes, bacon, sausage, toast, hash browns, cereal, orange juice, coffee, fruit and doughnuts.
Alford said a strength of the program was the relationships that were built between cafe patrons and volunteers.
Joe Alford, chaplain of Canterbury House, 1116 Louisiana St., helps coordinate the program.
"We have a lot of people say that this is their best meal of the week," said Yergovich, Benicia, Calif., senior.
Koury and Yergovich said they hoped to increase the number of days the cafe was open and the amount of interaction between workers and patrons, but they needed more help.
"We see them on the street, and we know them," he said.
Koury said working at the cafe had made her close to many of the patrons
"I'm happy to serve them as I would any of my other friends,"she said.
"Even though it's just breakfast," Koury said, "I hope that the empowerment carries on into the rest of their lives."
Koury said that as a volunteer she gained a new respect for the homeless and that she hoped the Jubilee Cafe also helped better the patrons' lives.
About 40 KU students work at the cafe, and several students will be trying to sign up more volunteers today at the Kansas Union.
Bad decisions
In July, an official in the office that supervises road construction crews in Minneapolis issued a directive, in response to complaints, that workers stop "eyeing," "staring at," or "ogl[ing]" women while on duty. In a subsequent clarification, the official said "smeak[ing] a look" would be OK, and said men, as well, should not be oiled.
Eligonso Lopez, 39, was recently granted a new trial after five years of protesting his innocence of his 1990 rape conviction. An investigation into law enforcement records by The Brownsville (Texas) Herald revealed that Lopez had an ironclad alibi that was ignored at his trial: He was in prison serving a sentence for drunken driving when the rape occurred.
Until July, when the state passed a law to correct the problem, hospitals in Alabama were allowed to charge rape victims for the forensic exams from which evidence, such as sperm and blood samples, were gathered against the perpetrators. In other Alabama crimes such as burglary, the forensic examination for blood, fingerprints, etc., is paid for by the state.
In March, police in New York City charged salesman Joel Levy, 32, with assault. According to police, Levy's live-in girlfriend arrived home unexpectedly after Levy had just put in an order for a call girl to come over. Levy improvised a plan to intercept "Brandy" in his building's lobby, have a liaison and then to dash back upstairs before his girlfriend got suspicious. When he saw a good-looking woman in the lobby, Levy assumed it was Brandy, nudged her into an elevator, and, according to police, pawed and fondled her while waving a $60 bill, saying, "You know you want it. You know you'll do anything for it." The woman was not Brandy but rather an assistant district attorney from Brooklyn.
In July, the U.S. Department of Transportation proposed to liberalize its procedure for drug testing employees who have "shy bladders." Currently, such employees are given 24 ounces of fluid within two hours to encourage urination. The department proposes 40 ounces during four hours, and on July 25 issued a 4,800-word Federal Register notice explaining its proposal.
Sign up today at the Kansas Union to work as a volunteer at the cafe!