It is my pleasure and privilege to tell you that the Miracle Among The Ruins, version one, is happening. Over the weekend we raised the final amount needed to close on the property. So thank you, thank you, thank you, and now let's keep the good things coming... Read other posts below about the community garden kitchen park project underway here; and if you haven't donated to it, we still need support; buying the property is the first step but we will need to buy supplies, and pay for construction of the new areas.
Keep reading this to hear some new developments in our latest ongoing big projects for renewing our area. We will do them too with your participation. Another world is not only possible, but is here among us, emerging.
1. All of you who have donated to the Miracle Among the Ruins Welcome Table Project have been helping us get double out of our donations, as we can also now it is hoped use our ownership of the property as part collateral on the down payment for our own two and a half times bigger building of our own we are seeking to purchase
I am planning on Wednesday, the day after closing on this property, to take paperwork to Spirit Bank to begin seeking the loan on our own building purchase of an old church site in the old historic business district of the Turley area. Important not only as history in our area, and a much needed way to expand and grow our presence and get us closer to school traffic and others in our service area, but it is a justice action in our area each time we are able to take and transform such a large abandoned building and turn it into a vibrant place for community. Keeping and turning over dollars into our own community so much in need of that very thing.
I am a very reluctant owner of any property or building, in general, as it often in some communities turns into an "edifice complex" and impedes the mission or becomes the mission; but this is good for the community, taking an abandoned building and actually using it in service to the community, helping to revitalize an abandoned areas itself. Many times even churches come into our area and use our buildings and then move on when they "outgrow" them. In contrast, we want the community to "outgrow" us. So this will become Miracle Among The Ruins, version 2.
2. Plus we have the purchase of the green space and bird sanctuary and children's safety space project along 61st St. between the school and the mobile home park and OBrien Park that we can now begin moving to get, especially partnering with local nature socieities such as Audubon and others. This area is an unsafe but travelled area for children, and another opportunity to create a place of peace and nature sanctuary in our area.
3. We are helping to take the lead on a rural economic grant and a Safe Routes to School partnership federal grant project with Cherokee School and INCOG and we hope the State Dept. of Transportation. Our currently developing project for sidewalks and lights, bike path and beautification around Cherokee School will not only provide more safety for students, but will be better for small struggling businesses nearby. We will work to slow traffic down, making it more like what it used to be decades ago, a microcommunity or small town downtown, hoping to use it as a draw to also attract new businesses to the renovated area.
4. We are working with McLain High School on its transformation, joining with its new school and community foundation, supporting its magnet programs, helping to promote the good changes academically that have been happening there. Growing our partnerships with the schools that prepare students for McLain as well. Looking for ways to help parents help students, to help students who have dropped out, by partnering with the library, schools and others. Stay tuned for programs emerging here in these and many other educational fronts.
5. We are helping shape a major new health care delivery initiative with OU for lay health advisors in neighborhoods, a project that if you saw writer Janet Pearsons editorial in Sundays Tulsa World you can see will be part of a national reform movement, all beginning here. We are working to support on one end the new specialty clinic in north Tulsa by OU, and on the preventive end to create a network of paid lay health advisors, people who live in the underserved and unhealthy areas, who can both help their neighbors with health concerns but who can also teach the care providers about the on the ground issues problems and realities of the communities and the lives of those receiving care. By taking health care out of a centralized location and a one size fits all way of providing and paying for care, the traditional clinic, we begin to turn inside out the way health is grown.
6. Growing our "day to day" miracles among the ruins by what happens at the Center, clinic, library, donation room, computer area, meetingspace, food pantry, and with our projects at the schools and other places. The second, third, and fourth weekends of September and the first weekend of October we will be engaged in hands on community renewal work, and partnering with social work students to help our Center better fulfill our world-changing mission "to create beloved community" through our small acts of justice...Next month we will be doing community work with social work students and residents on the second, third, and fourth Saturdays on beautification and renewal projects at Greeley School and other places in our area. See the calendar of events elsewhere on the website. Also know We are making a focus this year as well on diversity and respect of cultures, and on veterans, and on volunteers. Stay tuned.
You all are making such a difference in the world, just by sharing this with others, by coming and helping, coming and participating, and it is a joy to behold what may come in the next three years based on what all has happened in these, our first three years. Thanks again.
Ron Robinson, Executive Director, A Third Place Community Foundation
The Miracle Among The Ruins: A Third Place Community Foundation: Creating The Welcome Table Community Center, GardenPark and Orchard, Corner Store Free Pantry, Art Studio, Clothing/ThriftStore, and Supporting Renewal in the 74126 and 74130. Click on the Donate button or Subscribe button below for options to support our projects. We are a grassroots volunteer 501c3 nonprofit. Center located at 5920 N. Owasso Ave. Gardens at 6005 N. Johnstown. Contact us at 918-691-3223, 430-1150, 794-4637
Monday
Friday
Welcome To our "TNT" TulsaNorth/Turley Area, to the Miracle Among The Ruins, see the videos, read the stories, explore below, Donate above
Help Us Reach our Final Fundraising Goal. Just a few thousand to go, just a few days left. See the OU Graduate Design Studio vision of what the blighted abandoned houses and property can look like at http://turleyok.blogspot.com/2010/05/miracle-among-ruins-welcome-table.html. Or see the moving video by the OU social work students when they worked out here last summer at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhgFKD6_i_w Read all about it at http://turleyok.blogspot.com/2010/08/miracle-among-ruins-needs-you-link-of.html
Come This Saturday from 9 am to 3 pm and see for yourself, take the Four Directions Initiative Tour with us and a class from OU Graduate Social Work, be inspired, see and hear the problems but also see the vision and the seeds being sown. Or work with us at Cherokee School. www.cherokeeschoolgardenjournal.blogspot.com.
Come This Saturday from 9 am to 3 pm and see for yourself, take the Four Directions Initiative Tour with us and a class from OU Graduate Social Work, be inspired, see and hear the problems but also see the vision and the seeds being sown. Or work with us at Cherokee School. www.cherokeeschoolgardenjournal.blogspot.com.
Wednesday
TulsaNorth/Turley Food Statistics: Why We Need The Miracle Among The Ruins Welcome Table GardenKitchenPark
Back to the basics of why we do what we do...According to a survey of our service area residents living in our zipcodes, which we partnered last summer to do with the OU Graduate Social Work Department, and are now publishing the results of....
...55 percent worry about the amount of food they have
...6 percent use spoiled food
...29 percent use a food pantry
...31 percent receive food from church
...35 percent borrow food from family
...25 percent borrow food from friends
...25 percent adults skip entire day from eating
...29 percent adults skip meals
...26 percent did not eat and are hungry at time of survey
...43 percent eat less than they should
...60 percent eat low cost foods
...52 percent cannot afford nutritious meals
...57 percent run out of food
...60 percent cannot afford healthy food
The Food Environment:
...29 percent have no affordable source of food in community
...63 percent know about a food pantry
,..56 percent rate the food quality in Turley area as fair or poor
...59 percent indicate food in Turley area expensive or very expensive relative to budget
Overall Health:
...56 percent not currently healthy
...41 percent health is fair or poor
...54 percent are overweight
...66 percent should weigh less
...47 percent smoke or use other tobacco
Nothing too surprising, of course, but sometimes the statistics are needed to make especially visible and in our face what we know from our anecdotal experience.
While it is true in our short life as a community within our community we have begun to provide a food pantry, offer meals, a one morning a week health clinic, a daily summer feeding program, beginning community gardens and orchard, classes and workshops on nutrition, providing community health and food resource information, and more, it is all a small drop in the bucket compared to what we can effect physicially, psychologically, spiritually, with the creation of the planned The Welcome Table Community Garden Kitchen Greenspace Park where we can raise from the ground up, from the grassroots, a major project to change our landscape, to bring people together to grow their own healthy food, saving money and saving lives, teaching how to grow and how to cook and how to eat healthy right here in our neighborhood in a fun park environment we will make in a place with a great view of Tulsa downtown and Tulsa county stretching out to Bird Creek bottomland in one direction and Turley Hill in the other. See the other posts here for all the vision and details and our Aug. 31 fundraising deadline. See the donate button above. Safe and easy and you don't have to have a paypal account to use the online giving form. Or send checks of support made out to A Third Place Community Foundation to us at 6514 N. Peoria Ave. Turley or Tulsa OK 74126.
We don't wait for a governmental agency to come in from the outside, with employees who don't live in our area providing services to us in our area, to do this; we don't wait for the perfect time and perfect economic climate to do this; at a time when everyone is cutting back, here where things have been cut back for years, we come together to start something new, something with a safe environment in the midst of an area others seek to make unsafe or to stigmatize and stereotype; here on the ground in solidarity with supporters in other places, we can dream big again, and make them real, one block at a time, modelling and inspiring others in their areas.
We have these past three years created an indoors A Third Place Center, from which we have created small projects elsewhere across our area; now we are moving toward creating the gardenkitchenpark as an outdoors A Third Place Center, where even bigger dreams will be dreamed and connections made to pull them off too.
We can over time, and by changing the culture from the grassroots, turn those statistics on food and health and justice around; they have not always been true of us living here; they don't have to be true for us and our children in the future. Perhaps there is no one miracle cure for these social and political and personal problems underlying the statistics, as I believe there is not, but I know the Miracle Among The Ruins transformation is one miracle that will make a difference.
...55 percent worry about the amount of food they have
...6 percent use spoiled food
...29 percent use a food pantry
...31 percent receive food from church
...35 percent borrow food from family
...25 percent borrow food from friends
...25 percent adults skip entire day from eating
...29 percent adults skip meals
...26 percent did not eat and are hungry at time of survey
...43 percent eat less than they should
...60 percent eat low cost foods
...52 percent cannot afford nutritious meals
...57 percent run out of food
...60 percent cannot afford healthy food
The Food Environment:
...29 percent have no affordable source of food in community
...63 percent know about a food pantry
,..56 percent rate the food quality in Turley area as fair or poor
...59 percent indicate food in Turley area expensive or very expensive relative to budget
Overall Health:
...56 percent not currently healthy
...41 percent health is fair or poor
...54 percent are overweight
...66 percent should weigh less
...47 percent smoke or use other tobacco
Nothing too surprising, of course, but sometimes the statistics are needed to make especially visible and in our face what we know from our anecdotal experience.
While it is true in our short life as a community within our community we have begun to provide a food pantry, offer meals, a one morning a week health clinic, a daily summer feeding program, beginning community gardens and orchard, classes and workshops on nutrition, providing community health and food resource information, and more, it is all a small drop in the bucket compared to what we can effect physicially, psychologically, spiritually, with the creation of the planned The Welcome Table Community Garden Kitchen Greenspace Park where we can raise from the ground up, from the grassroots, a major project to change our landscape, to bring people together to grow their own healthy food, saving money and saving lives, teaching how to grow and how to cook and how to eat healthy right here in our neighborhood in a fun park environment we will make in a place with a great view of Tulsa downtown and Tulsa county stretching out to Bird Creek bottomland in one direction and Turley Hill in the other. See the other posts here for all the vision and details and our Aug. 31 fundraising deadline. See the donate button above. Safe and easy and you don't have to have a paypal account to use the online giving form. Or send checks of support made out to A Third Place Community Foundation to us at 6514 N. Peoria Ave. Turley or Tulsa OK 74126.
We don't wait for a governmental agency to come in from the outside, with employees who don't live in our area providing services to us in our area, to do this; we don't wait for the perfect time and perfect economic climate to do this; at a time when everyone is cutting back, here where things have been cut back for years, we come together to start something new, something with a safe environment in the midst of an area others seek to make unsafe or to stigmatize and stereotype; here on the ground in solidarity with supporters in other places, we can dream big again, and make them real, one block at a time, modelling and inspiring others in their areas.
We have these past three years created an indoors A Third Place Center, from which we have created small projects elsewhere across our area; now we are moving toward creating the gardenkitchenpark as an outdoors A Third Place Center, where even bigger dreams will be dreamed and connections made to pull them off too.
We can over time, and by changing the culture from the grassroots, turn those statistics on food and health and justice around; they have not always been true of us living here; they don't have to be true for us and our children in the future. Perhaps there is no one miracle cure for these social and political and personal problems underlying the statistics, as I believe there is not, but I know the Miracle Among The Ruins transformation is one miracle that will make a difference.
Tuesday
Friday
Coming "TNT" Events: Tulsa North/Turley. Don't Miss Them.
All are welcome. All are needed. Let us know of events to add. Let us know of events you would like to see. Come and help us plan how to make these events better and reach more people. Pass this on so others will have the same opportunity to be a part of community. More details coming, and reports afterwards, on these events.
OU Community Medicine Clinic Friday mornings. A Third Place. 619-4400 appts.
Area Leadership Council meeting, third Friday, Aug. 20, 2:30 pm, A Third Place.
Monthly McLain High School Initiative, third Fridays, 4 pm., Aug. 20, McLain.
Diversity Monthly Free Movie Night, Aug. 26, 6:30 pm, “Iron Jawed Angels” A Third Place. About the tremendous struggle for women's right to vote, on the day the nineteenth amendment was signed and Women's Rights Day was begun.
OU-“TNT” Tulsa North/Turley community service day, Sat. Aug. 28, 9am-3pm, A Third Place and out in community. Graduate Social Work Dept.
Garden Art and Community Gardening Day, Cherokee School, 6001 N. Peoria, Sat. Aug. 28, 8 am to Noon. Every School a Garden, Every Child a Gardener Program.
Turley Community Association, 7 pm, Tues Aug. 31, O’Brien Center, 6147 N. Lewis.
Community Coalitions Meeting with State Rep. Seneca Scott, Friday, Sept. 3, 5:30 pm TCC Northeast Campus, Apache and Harvard
Arts and Crafts Gathering, Tuesday Sept. 7, 6:30 pm, A Third Place. Free. Bring Projects or Interests.
OU-TNT Day, community projects, A Third Place, Sept. 11, 9 am to 3 pm.
Fundraising Lunch and Music for the Community Center at noon. Also OU-TNT projects Sept. 28 with Heritage Lunch at noon.
North Tulsa Coalitions meeting, Sept. 14 11 am Tulsa Job Corps on North Lewis.
Diversity Movie Month Free, Sept. 14, 6:30 pm A Third Place: Hispanic Community Focus
Weekly 12 Step Recovery Group, 7:30 pm Saturday, A Third Place
Weekly Thursday, 7 pm, Fire Department Meetings, Turley, 6404 N. Peoria
Last working day of month, 8:30 am Turley Water Board Public Meeting, 6108 N. Peoria
Sundays Weekly 10 am Church at A Third Place Worship, Rev. Ron Robinson
Much More To Come...
“Small Acts of Justice Done With Great Love Change The World”
OU Community Medicine Clinic Friday mornings. A Third Place. 619-4400 appts.
Area Leadership Council meeting, third Friday, Aug. 20, 2:30 pm, A Third Place.
Monthly McLain High School Initiative, third Fridays, 4 pm., Aug. 20, McLain.
Diversity Monthly Free Movie Night, Aug. 26, 6:30 pm, “Iron Jawed Angels” A Third Place. About the tremendous struggle for women's right to vote, on the day the nineteenth amendment was signed and Women's Rights Day was begun.
OU-“TNT” Tulsa North/Turley community service day, Sat. Aug. 28, 9am-3pm, A Third Place and out in community. Graduate Social Work Dept.
Garden Art and Community Gardening Day, Cherokee School, 6001 N. Peoria, Sat. Aug. 28, 8 am to Noon. Every School a Garden, Every Child a Gardener Program.
Turley Community Association, 7 pm, Tues Aug. 31, O’Brien Center, 6147 N. Lewis.
Community Coalitions Meeting with State Rep. Seneca Scott, Friday, Sept. 3, 5:30 pm TCC Northeast Campus, Apache and Harvard
Arts and Crafts Gathering, Tuesday Sept. 7, 6:30 pm, A Third Place. Free. Bring Projects or Interests.
OU-TNT Day, community projects, A Third Place, Sept. 11, 9 am to 3 pm.
Fundraising Lunch and Music for the Community Center at noon. Also OU-TNT projects Sept. 28 with Heritage Lunch at noon.
North Tulsa Coalitions meeting, Sept. 14 11 am Tulsa Job Corps on North Lewis.
Diversity Movie Month Free, Sept. 14, 6:30 pm A Third Place: Hispanic Community Focus
Weekly 12 Step Recovery Group, 7:30 pm Saturday, A Third Place
Weekly Thursday, 7 pm, Fire Department Meetings, Turley, 6404 N. Peoria
Last working day of month, 8:30 am Turley Water Board Public Meeting, 6108 N. Peoria
Sundays Weekly 10 am Church at A Third Place Worship, Rev. Ron Robinson
Much More To Come...
“Small Acts of Justice Done With Great Love Change The World”
Thursday
Community Invite To Garden Party at Cherokee Saturdays Aug. 14 and 28, 8 to 10 am
Full details at the wonderful new blog you can follow at http://www.cherokeeschoolgardenjournal.blogspot.com/.
Come help us this Saturday Aug. 14 from 8 to 10 am as we build a Vegetable Garden Playhouse Hut at Cherokee School, 6001 N. Peoria Ave., using cattle panels. It will be located in the vegetable garden area in the back or east side of the building off Quincy Ave. If you can't make it this Saturday morning (great place to come after being an early bird at farmers market), pass on the invitation to others who might like to help this school get ready to greet the students on their return.
Then, on Saturday, Aug. 28, from 8 to 10 am the focus at the school garden will be Garden Art. Bring broken items from homes and they will be made into mosaics, sculptures, etc. for placement in the gardens around the school. Come see the transformation that began with the big garden day last September.
On this day Aug. 28 we will also be working in the community with a new crop of OU graduate social work students, giving them a tour of our service area in Tulsa North and Turley. If you'd would like to join in the tour and learn about our "Four Directions Initiative" and learn more about the history of the area, its changes, and plans for its future feel free; the general public will be invited.
What we did last year with the big Garden Transformation Event at Cherokee in September, we are hoping to do again this year at Horace Greeley Elementary School at North Cincinnati and 63rd St. Tentative date is Sat. Sept. 18; more information will be coming.
For more on Every School a Garden and Every Child a Gardener and the plans for these events go to www.cherokeeschoolgardenjournal.blogspot.com.
Thanks,hope to see you there
Come help us this Saturday Aug. 14 from 8 to 10 am as we build a Vegetable Garden Playhouse Hut at Cherokee School, 6001 N. Peoria Ave., using cattle panels. It will be located in the vegetable garden area in the back or east side of the building off Quincy Ave. If you can't make it this Saturday morning (great place to come after being an early bird at farmers market), pass on the invitation to others who might like to help this school get ready to greet the students on their return.
Then, on Saturday, Aug. 28, from 8 to 10 am the focus at the school garden will be Garden Art. Bring broken items from homes and they will be made into mosaics, sculptures, etc. for placement in the gardens around the school. Come see the transformation that began with the big garden day last September.
On this day Aug. 28 we will also be working in the community with a new crop of OU graduate social work students, giving them a tour of our service area in Tulsa North and Turley. If you'd would like to join in the tour and learn about our "Four Directions Initiative" and learn more about the history of the area, its changes, and plans for its future feel free; the general public will be invited.
What we did last year with the big Garden Transformation Event at Cherokee in September, we are hoping to do again this year at Horace Greeley Elementary School at North Cincinnati and 63rd St. Tentative date is Sat. Sept. 18; more information will be coming.
For more on Every School a Garden and Every Child a Gardener and the plans for these events go to www.cherokeeschoolgardenjournal.blogspot.com.
Thanks,hope to see you there
Sunday
Miracle Among The Ruins Needs You: Link of Links
Pass this post on to others, church and youth and service groups; help us give the children here the Miracle Among the Ruins; we are $3,000 short of our goal and our deadline is Aug. 31. Donate safely and easily at the button above. See the links below for more.
See the plans and the links to all the links about the property and what it looks like now for kids at http://turleyok.blogspot.com/2010/06/channel-six-news-story-on-our-miracle.html.
The Channel Six news story is at http://www.newson6.com/Global/story.asp?S=12642450
For the OU social work students moving video about the place and the need for the project and for your donations, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhgFKD6_i_w .
For the OU Design Studio on what it will look like go to http://turleyok.blogspot.com/2010/05/miracle-among-ruins-welcome-table.html
For the background on why we are doing this community transformation project here go to http://turleyok.blogspot.com/2010/05/see-vision-miracle-among-ruins.html and to http://turleyok.blogspot.com/2010/04/consider-thischange-this.html
For the bigger connect the dots link on how we have plans for all of our Four Directions area of Tulsa North and Turley go to http://turleyok.blogspot.com/2010/05/four-directions-initiative-tnt-vision.html
And after you donate share it with someone who will donate. Don't wait. Every little bit goes a long way here. Surprise yourself and the world. Just as our Miracle Among the Ruin will surprise the children who will see it rise where ruins were before, all around them.
See the plans and the links to all the links about the property and what it looks like now for kids at http://turleyok.blogspot.com/2010/06/channel-six-news-story-on-our-miracle.html.
The Channel Six news story is at http://www.newson6.com/Global/story.asp?S=12642450
For the OU social work students moving video about the place and the need for the project and for your donations, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhgFKD6_i_w .
For the OU Design Studio on what it will look like go to http://turleyok.blogspot.com/2010/05/miracle-among-ruins-welcome-table.html
For the background on why we are doing this community transformation project here go to http://turleyok.blogspot.com/2010/05/see-vision-miracle-among-ruins.html and to http://turleyok.blogspot.com/2010/04/consider-thischange-this.html
For the bigger connect the dots link on how we have plans for all of our Four Directions area of Tulsa North and Turley go to http://turleyok.blogspot.com/2010/05/four-directions-initiative-tnt-vision.html
And after you donate share it with someone who will donate. Don't wait. Every little bit goes a long way here. Surprise yourself and the world. Just as our Miracle Among the Ruin will surprise the children who will see it rise where ruins were before, all around them.
Saturday
Just a Bit Of What Our Children Will See On Way To School on N. Peoria: See below for helping us change this.
Pass this post on to others. Children shouldn't be walking through these or past these, and these don't cover all the areas near us. Just a few of the photos of trash or abandoned houses with overgrown weeds creating risky unsafe environments. It is why we are doing the community gardening and beautification at the school itself, and why we are raising funds for the Miracle Among The Ruins project. Come to Cherokee 6001 N. Peoria on Saturdays Aug. 14 and 28 in the mornings to help beautify; pass on to others, church and youth and service groups; also help us give the children something different to walk past; help us give them the Miracle Among the Ruins; we are $3,000 short of our goal and our deadline is Aug. 31. Donate safely and easily at the button above.
See the plans and the links to all the links about the property and what it looks like now for kids at http://turleyok.blogspot.com/2010/06/channel-six-news-story-on-our-miracle.html.
The Channel Six news story is at http://www.newson6.com/Global/story.asp?S=12642450
For the OU social work students moving video about the place and the need for the project and for your donations, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhgFKD6_i_w .
For the OU Design Studio on what it will look like go to http://turleyok.blogspot.com/2010/05/miracle-among-ruins-welcome-table.html
For the background on why we are doing this community transformation project here go to http://turleyok.blogspot.com/2010/05/see-vision-miracle-among-ruins.html and to http://turleyok.blogspot.com/2010/04/consider-thischange-this.html
For the bigger connect the dots link on how we have plans for all of our Four Directions area of Tulsa North and Turley go to http://turleyok.blogspot.com/2010/05/four-directions-initiative-tnt-vision.html
And after you donate share it with someone who will donate. Don't wait. Every little bit goes a long way here. Surprise yourself and the world. Just as our Miracle Among the Ruin will surprise the children who will see it rise where ruins were before, all around them.
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