Where Planting Beauty is a Social Justice Event

Saturday, May 1, 8 am to 2 pm Beautify Turley and Area

---Transforming and planting at the Welcome to Turley sign, 56th and N. Peoria. This is one of the main entries into our part of the area as you cross into the unincorporated section, and immediately confront abandoned houses and eyesores; the Welcome sign will be a seed of hope and beauty right away.

---Picking Up Trash dumped in our area; there is more than we can ever get to but we will make a stab at some of the worst of it. Bags, gloves, water provided.

---Planting more outdoor classrooms at Cherokee School, 6001 N. Peoria.

---Plant and Seed and Tool Exchange at A Third Place Center, 6514 N. Peoria Ave.

---Giveaway Day at the Center

---Free Lunch for Helpers at the Center

---Live Country Band Johnny and The Oklahomans during lunch at the Center.

If we get enough helpers, Working on the new beds at Horace Greeley school, 63rd and N. Cincinnatti. Working on the intersection at 66th and N. Lewis, the community garden at 60th and N. Johnstown.

Hope you can help us spread the word, and find helpers for our project this Saturday; in part it is completing the rain-dampened projects from two Saturdays ago at Cherokee School, plus planting projects for which we received a Keep Oklahoma Beautiful grant.

Come by and see what's happening on North Peoria. And while here see the city block of abandoned houses we are raising funds for to transform into The Welcome Kitchen Garden Park Project at 60th and N. Johnstown.

We are a third of the way in raising funds needed; help us now; all we need are 100 more people to give an average of $100 (give more if you can, give less if you need to; all is dearly welcomed) indicate if you would like a particular name on the donor sign in honor or memory of someone.) Read all about it and donate online at www.turleyok.blogspot.com and share with others; this is a grassroots intiative carried out entirely by all volunteer community group. We are hoping if people can't give $100 they may know ten people who could give $10.

Thanks for all you do, feel free to pass this on.
Ron Robinson and Bonnie Ashing
691-3223 cell or 430-1150 home or 794-4637 at the Center.

Every Event An Experience of Hope

Thanks to all who came to our many April events and everyday happenings at the Center, Clinic, Library, Giving Room, Food Pantry, Church, etc. You are Invited....

Beautify Turley & Area Event, Saturday May 1 from 8 am to 2 pm. Thanks to grant from Keep Oklahoma Beautiful. Help us pick up trash from the streets. Help us create new and more beautiful Welcome to Turley signs. Free meal for helpers. Live country music from Johnny and The Oklahomans at A Third Place Center. Find out ways you can help us keep beautifying our community.

Community Arts and Crafts. Tuesday, May 4, 6:30 pm at the Center. Bring projects, talk about ways to take art into the streets and other places of our area.

Partnering with Cherokee Elementary School, meeting of business and community and church leaders in Turley area, cookout on the courtyard, talk by Rep. Seneca Scott, Friday, May 7 11:30 am.

Community Sharing and Organizing with State Rep. Seneca Scott, "From Turley to TU" Friday, May 7, 5:30 pm Tulsa Community College Northeast Campus, Apache and Harvard.

Benefit Pancake and More Community Center Breakfast and Sharing, Saturday, May 8, 8 to 10 am, at the Center. $5 Bring others to find out what's going on, meet new friends, share plans.

Community Gardening and Random Acts of Kindness and Beauty, Saturday May 8 10 am to noon, meet at the Center.

Monthly Sustainability Documentary and Discussion by Let Turley Bloom, with community gardening planning and sharing, "Manufactured Landscapes." about the destruction of land, communities, and dignity of workers in order to feed the consumption of the few. Tuesday, May 11, 6:30 pm. at the Center.

Turley Community Association, Tuesday, May 25, 7 pm, O'Brien Park Center.

OU Community Medicine Clinic every Monday and Friday at the Center.

Weekly Worship Church in A Third Place, Rev. Ron Robinson, 10 am, Sundays, communion, conversation, common meal, community projects.

Weekly 12 Step Recovery Group at the Center, Saturday 7:30 pm

Weekly Fire Department public meetings, Thursdays 7 pm, 6404 N. Peoria Ave.

Turley Water Board meeting last working day of each month 8:30 am, 6108 N. Peoria

Free Community Academy & Free Meal Tuesday 5:30 pm to 8 pm

Have an idea for making our area a better place? Have a desire to make yourself a better person? Like to get job skills and leadership training and relationship building? Want to help make your organization or church or business better?

Come to Community Academy, free, taught in conjunction with the University of Oklahoma Tulsa Graduate Social Work Department and A Third Place Center. Bring someone with you. These sessions have been great. Just two left this month in this first ever round of meetings.

Next session April 20. Then come for sure to the final celebration, even if this is your first time, on Tuesday April 27 when we have the event in conjunction again with the monthly Turley Community Association meeting.

Want to see pictures of past community academy gatherings? Or follow what all is happening with A Third Place? If you are on facebook, friend A Third Place Community and also friend and follow Ron Robinson at www.facebook.com/revronrobinson.

Community Gardening Party at Cherokee and Greeley School Saturday April 17 10 am Free Meal and Free Live Music and Plant/Seed/Garden Exchange

Everyone welcome and everyone needed. Come by Cherokee School 10 am on. Live music and free meal and plant and gardening seed and more exchange. Help make an outdoor classroom and beautify Cherokee School, 6001 N. Peoria Ave, come for as little or as long as you can. Come find out what's going on in the community. Come help us get a similar school gardens and science outdoor nature classroom going at Greeley School, 63rd and N. Cincinnati. It all happens Saturday, April 17. If we get too much rain we will reschedule for Saturday, May 1 which is our great neighborhood area litter pickup event, celebrate renovation of welcome signs, etc. party anyway.

Consider This...Change This

Consider All This:

...That our Elementary school children walk past this property, and families walk past on their way to the grocery store and back home. Go to the video in post below that the OU social work students made last summer. You will see one piece of property that is by far not the worst of properties here where we live; in fact near this property are some other dozen or so abandoned run down empty burned out buildings most open where children can get to. But this is the property we can start with and has a beautiful view of downtown Tulsa. From a place of turning away from it can be a place of turning toward.

...That our public community centers have been closed down, especially in our lowest income areas like ours, affecting programs for our children...That Our state is dead last as the healthiest state, and our children's health is a big part of that... And consider that our 74126 zip code has the lowest life expectancy in our metropolitan area...We can create here an outside community space for community health, classes, meetings to go along with our inside community space and clinic, so we can use this property for gardens and kitchen and classes in a way that doesn't require people to come to us.

Think about this fact: That 40 percent of the vacant residential properties in our two mile radius have been abandoned...not for sale, not for rent, vacant and abandoned and waiting to become like the properties in the video and those even worse nearby.

That We live in a healthy food desert...When I was in cardiac rehab this last Fall across town after my heart attack the nurses brought out all the healthy brands and said to our class buy these, and I said I couldn't get them on my side of town and was fortunate enough to be able to regularly drive across town unlike most of my neighbors... That the survey we did with OU last summer showed A third in our area feel insecure about feeding themselves and their families with healthy food…oh we have convenience stores and smoke shops galore. But, but, there is not even pizza delivery for thousands who live north of Apache street, and we are talking just a couple of miles from downtown itself.

That next year for our elementary school and all those in the north Tulsa area The Tulsa Public Schools are ending the elementary science/nature classes in schools in our area even though our high school, McLain, has a magnet science programs. The classes were started to help our children get the science and nature background early on so they can take advantage of the magnet program when they reach that age and it won't just be for others with the skills from other areas. That not only are we putting in outdoor classrooms and planning to fill the gap by creating a science and nature extra curricular club since it won't be focused on in the curricula the same, but this property will serve as a classroom.

That week after week, but more it seems the warmer it gets and youth and others are out more but without more "outside" places to go to, the news is full of killings and shootings within our two mile radius. That our one little block project will not be THE answer, but it is A response, risking community and connection and is in a place for reconciliation.

Consider This...Change This. The Welcome Table Kitchen Garden Park Project. Become a part of the Possibility. Pass it Along, again and again and again. Go to the Donate button.

PassAlong The Possibility: Transforming Neighborhoods

Update on The Welcome Table Kitchen Garden Park Project

A Third Place Community Center in Turley and in Tulsa’s northern-edge

With University of Oklahoma Design Studio and Graduate Social Work Partners

Consider All This: We are in recession….Our public community centers have been closed down, especially in our lowest income areas... Our state is dead last as the healthiest state… And our 74126 zip code has the lowest life expectancy in our area... 40 percent of the vacant residential properties in our two mile radius have been abandoned… We live in a healthy food desert…A third in our area feel insecure about feeding themselves and their families with healthy food… The Tulsa Public Schools are ending the elementary science/nature classes in schools in our area even though our high school, McLain, has magnet science programs.

Because of, in spite of all this….We at A Third Place Community Center believe another way is possible…

Sustainable Community Development One Block at a Time. Taking a full block with 12 lots with abandoned houses and trash, in an area overlooking downtown Tulsa, bridging two ethnically diverse low income areas….Turning It into An Outdoor Center with Community Gardens, Community Kitchen, Community Classes and Meals, Family area. On an acre at 60th and N. Johnstown Ave.

We are raising from local residents and global citizens $15,000 needed to purchase the property to begin the transformation. WE CAN ONLY DO IT WITH YOU…We need 100 people from around the world to give at least an average $100 to match what we have raised (you can give more; you can give less; we want as many owners as possible). Donate in honor or memory of someone who cared.

See above link to Donate Online. Use credit, debit cards or paypal. Or Send checks made out to A Third Place Community Foundation to 6514 N. Peoria Ave., Turley, OK 74126. We are an all-volunteer grassroots new 501c3 non profit organization but already have a health clinic, library, computer center, food pantry, clothing room, lending library, gardens and orchard, community center with programs and events. We would love to partner with you. Thanks so much.

“Small Acts of Justice Done With Great Love Change The World”

A Third Place Community Foundation, 6514 N. Peoria Ave.918-794-4637, 691-3223, 430-1150, thirdplaceturley@aol.com

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Donate Now Online For The Transforming Turley Welcome Table Kitchen Garden Park Project

Now Donate Online. You can do so without a paypal account or going through paypal. When you click on the button above you will go to a page where you can donate through paypal, or you will see toward the bottom of the page a list of credit cards and a place where you can click continue to pay directly with your credit or debit card and not with paypal. If you ever have any problems or questions about the online donation process, please let me know.

See above where you can click to donate to our amazing transformation project so needed at this time of cutbacks to turn a neglected city block on the northern edge of Tulsa overlooking downtown Tulsa and full of abandoned buildings in a neighborhood full of abandoned burned out buildings into a community garden, community outdoor meeting space, and event space. An outdoors A Third Place Center, designed by OU Graduate Design Studio and with the assistance of the OU Graduate Social Work students helping us, a nonprofit community grassroots all volunteer based group of people changing the world one block at a time. Sustainable. Inspiring. See the main post below.

You can use your credit card information, or your pay pal account either one. It is secure. It just takes a few minutes and can change the world. We need another 12,000 people to give $1, or another 120 to give $100, or just another 60 people to give $200, or another 30 people to give $400. We can do it. Donate and let others on your networks know you have donated and ask for challenge or matching donations.

Act now while the offer, as the saying goes, is still good and help us buy the property. Be an owner of the place.

If you have a difficulty with the online donation please contact me at RevRonRobinson@aol.com