Angel Café opens for East High School students inside Church in the City

A new safe space for East High School students was created in response to recent violence at the school, will open Wednesday.  

The new space is called the Angel Café and is located inside Church in the City at 16th Ave and Gaylord Street, just blocks away from East High. The goal is to give kids a safe and supportive space starting this week.  

"I think it could really create a community that students are missing at this moment," said Maya Moorman, who oversees student voice and impact work for FaithBridge.  

On Tuesday, Moorman joined other staff members and volunteers from FaithBridge in handing out fliers about the café's upcoming opening. For the former Denver Public Schools student, the hope was to spread the word about something she never had.  

"Once kids get ahold of something and they realize what it is, it just spreads like wildfire," Moorman said. "I think that it's definitely going to be something students are going to be excited about."  

In partnership with Church in the City, Angel Cafe is the newest project of FaithBridge. The whole idea is to give East students a safe, off-campus space for their lunch break.

The cafe includes tables to sit down and eat, as well as five vendors and a barista for kids to get affordable food and drinks.

"Our vision is to have a place to develop relationships with the students -in a total youth friendly and safe space for students. After school and evening programs will be added as well. We hope this could be a model for other safe, and youth friendly spaces to become available around other schools," said Church in the City pastor, Michael Walker, who came up with the original idea for the cafe.

According to Jones, the idea for the café came weeks ago, in response to the recent violence at the school, which included the shooting death of a student, as well as a shooting that injured two deans. 

"Anytime kids are loved and supported, you deter violence," Jones said. "Anytime kids feel like they have safe spaces to be kids and enjoy being young, you deter other behaviors that are not healthy for them."  

Jones says students will have a major say in everything from how many days they're open to what kinds of food and programming they have. 

For now, they'll offer activities, as well as cheap food and drinks for a few lunch hours a week. Long term, Jones envisions adding after school hours with resources and job or mentorship opportunities, as well as creating additional cafes.  

"If kids show up, we're going to be here to support them," he said. "We really would like to take it to scale across the city and say, 'how do we create life-giving spaces around our comprehensive high schools so that they know there's a space in community that you can go to and be young and enjoy life and be safe.'"  

The café is partly staffed by FaithBridge staff, but volunteers will play a major part. If you're interested in volunteering, reach out to the organization, visit here: https://bit.ly/3MW6Eqa