Church next to campus offers food, reaches out to students

By: Heather Sprigler

Posted: 6/2/08

Sodexho has long been the dominating force for food at UMKC. But students have another choice for a home-cooked style meal.

The Central United Methodist Church, located next to the UMKC Volker campus at 5144 Oak St., has opened its Break Away Café.

John Pinkston II, director of Student Life Ministries, described the new café.

"Break Away Café is a place where for $2, students can come in and get a really good meal," Pinkston said. "We're not talking about pizza and sandwiches. This is just a really good meal."

Break Away Café has been open for about a month, and has already provided students a variety of meals. These include Moroccan chicken with couscous and ice cream sundaes (with homemade fudge and caramel sauce), Santa Fe chicken with Mexican chocolate cake for dessert, Creole chicken with rice and bread pudding for dessert (with lemon sauce) and spaghetti and béarnaise sauce with chocolate and New York style cheesecake for dessert.

"In my opinion, the cheesecake is better than what you get at the Cheesecake Factory," Pinkston said.

The church is also opening up other services to students. It offers a new Sunday school, activity space open to events and church organizers are working on setting up ministries and community service work, which Pinkston said would be available in the fall.

The idea developed as part of the church's new ministry and outreach plan.

"Part of it came from our annual conference," Pinkston said. "We want to do something with student ministries that is new and different and relevant to students. We are in an ideal location and we were missing out on reaching out to students, meeting them and getting to know them."

In addition to being next to UMKC's Volker campus, the church is a few blocks from Rockhurst University, less than one mile from the Kansas City Art Institute, a few miles from the Kansas University Edwards Campus and not far from Penn Valley Community College.

"Rather than a campus house, we wanted to use our church," Pinkston said. "This was good for us because we are [so close] to UMKC. We want to get to know these students and share with them our message of hope."

Pinkston shares with students not only his message, but also classes. He is currently a student at the UMKC Henry W. Bloch School of Business and Public Administration. He is working on a PhD in Public Administration.

"I think the biggest thing is that there are lots of opportunities in Kansas City, but we are here for the students," Pinkston said. "We want to know how we can get to know them, serve them, and be here for them. We want to encourage them to get to know who we are, but we want to help them get to know who they are and who they want to be."

The Break Away Café is currently open on Tuesdays from 5 to 7 p.m. Students can enter through a bright yellow door on the north side of the building. Pinkston said the café will have more availability and regular hours for meals this fall. For more information, visit www.centralcares.com.

hsprigler@unews.com