This Saturday at 2 pm during Festival: Oklahoma State House of Representatives Proclamation Honors OU and Turley Area Partnership with A Third Place

University of Oklahoma-Tulsa Relationship With A Third Place Community Center in Turley Honored by Oklahoma House of Representatives; Ceremony Scheduled For Sat. June 19 2 pm
Date: June 16, 2010
For More Information, contact Dr. Lisa Byers, 814-7562 or Ron Robinson, Executive Director, A Third Place Community Foundation, 918-691-3223 or 794-4637

A public ceremony honoring the accomplishments of the campus-community partnership and relationship between various schools of the University of Oklahoma and the residents of far north Tulsa and the adjacent unincorporated area of Turley will take place Saturday, June 19 at 2 pm at A Third Place Community Center, 6514 N. Peoria Ave., featuring State Rep. Seneca Scott, who serves the area, and OU and A Third Place officials.

An official proclamation from the Oklahoma State House of Representatives will be read and presented to the University of Oklahoma thanking it for its programs, especially in community health, social work, and design, which have created positive change in the lives of residents in the immediate area, one of the lowest income and least serviced areas and with the lowest life expectancy in the Tulsa region. A Third Place Community Foundation's service area is from North 46th to 86th Streets and from Highway 75 to the Osage County Line. Certificates will also be given from OU School of Social Work to local residents who recently participated in all sessions of community project organizing classes sponsored by A Third Place and OU.

For the past three years, OU has worked for community development in the local area in partnership with A Third Place Community Foundation, a grassroots non-profit community renewal organization working in Tulsa North and the adjacent unincorporated neighborhood of Turley, OK. Major accomplishments of the partnership just in these past few years include a Community Health Clinic and medical information in the Center, ongoing community forums for citizens to participate and plan programs, community gardening canvassing, identifying the high rate of abandoned run-down homes and properties in need in the urban unincorporated area especially, nutritional studies and assistance, volunteering at the Community Center, establishing a resource center and practicum site for graduate social work students to help residents, helping to establish a Food Pantry, donating trees after the 2007 ice storm, initiating a free Community Academy of classes in community organizing, and helping to design a current proposed project to turn a city block of abandoned homes in the area into a community kitchen garden park.

The ceremony will be held during the weekend's Fourth Annual Turley and Area Free Festival, a Juneteenth and Local/Whole Foods Week celebration that will run Friday and Saturday, June 18 and 19 at the A Third Place Community Center and at O'Brien Park, 6230 N. Birmingham. A panel discussion will take place following the ceremony on "Next Steps For Building Our Healthy Community." The many volunteer opportunities in the area, especially for food and gardening and animal welfare and safety and other issues, will be highlighted, along with the Juneteenth focus on the need for continuing efforts toward reconciliation along race, ethnic and other means by working together for the good of the wider community, according to Ron Robinson, Executive Director of A Third Place, an all volunteer group of local residents celebrating this month the third anniversary of the creation of the Center located on North Peoria.

Free live music, food, games, children's activities, tye-dye art, community information, and programs on the area's past, present, and future will be held from Friday June 18 noon to 9 pm and Saturday June 19 from 10 am to 10 pm. Free swimming will be offered at the Tulsa County O'Brien Park pool for all who bring at least two cans of food for the A Third Place Food Pantry.

For more information, contact Dr. Lisa Byers of OU-Tulsa School of Social Work, or A Third Place Center, 691-3223 or 794-4637.