December Coming Events: All Welcome

COMMUNITY COMING EVENTS For All

 @ The Welcome Table Community Center

A project of the local A Third Place Community Foundation

 Resources & Info/Library&Bookstore/Computer Center FoodPantry/Clothing/Chapel/GardenPark&Orchard

 5920 N. Owasso Ave. and 6005 N. Johnstown Ave. 918-794-4637

 www.turleyok.blogspot.com for more information

1.     Food Pantry  Open Every Tuesday and Thursday, 3 to 6 pm at the community center

2.     Turley Area TownHall Public Meeting: What to Do with Cherokee School and Turley’s Future?; updates on Vann GreenPark; and more, Tuesday, Nov. 29, 7 pm O’Brien

3.     Turley Planning Group Meeting: working on Disaster Response Network, Incorporation, Cherokee School Use, Post Office Renewal, and more. Thursday Dec. 1, 3:30 pm.

4.     O’Brien Park Advisory Board public meeting, Thursday, Dec. 1, 5:30 pm, O’Brien

5.     Advent Vespers Worship Thursdays in December, 6:30 pm, The Welcome Table Center

6.     Christmas Decorating Party for Community Center and Turley, Sunday Dec. 4, 1 pm

7.     Movie Night, Tuesday, Dec. 13, 6:30 pm at the Center, “Joyeaux Noel”

8.     Community Christmas Party and Carolling, Tuesday, Dec. 20, 7 pm, at the Center

9.     Turley Area Alliance Against Crime: Personal, Home, and Neighborhood Safety meetings  Thursday Dec. 29, 6:30 pm at the center

10.             New Year’s Eve Watch Party, Sat. Dec. 31, 9 pm, The Welcome Table Center

11.            Recovery 12 step Saturdays, 5 pm Jerks Anonymous, 7:30 pm, Alcoholics Anonymous,  community center

12.            Turley Water Board Public Meeting, LAST WORKING DAY OF MONTH 8:30 AM AT THE WATER DEPT. 6108 N. Peoria Ave.

13.            Turley Fire Dept. Meetings  THURSDAYS 7 PM, Fire Station, 6408 N. Peoria.

14.          The Welcome Table Missional Community, Sundays beginning 9:30 am, conversation on progressive Christianity and justice for the poor, community service, communion, common meal, other worship and prayer classes coming up; see Rev. Ron Robinson. 

 “Growing Healthy Lives and Neighborhoods in the 74126 and 74130”

Turley Community Thanksgiving Meal Party

Come at Noon Thursday to the Community Center for a Thanksgiving Community Potluck. Bring anything, from a bag of chips to juice or ice, or a single apple, we don't care, come and share and eat together in community. Games, TV, computers, library. Meet new friends, see old friends, help us feed our neighbors. RSVP if you can to 918-794-4637 but be sure to come.

In the midst of scarcity and struggle here, the blessings emerge; Thanksgiving News and More in Turley and Far Northside

This weekend begins the time of year when we get to lift up to the world around us that God's Dream to which we commit to and work toward bringing out in and through beloved community that exists for others, even in our community of struggle. This dream or worldview is different and more meaningful and life-giving than the American Dream that these days, in difference to how it was originally and has been in times of crisis, seeks to define us as out for ourselves over and against each other. Thanksgiving's time of serving others, Advent's season of waiting, pondering, going deeper into the darkness, trusting in peace, joy, love, and hope against the commercial world's values of getting and keeping. And Christmas time of the ordinary becoming incredibly extraordinary, when the giftedness of all of Creation comes about in someone very vulnerable, very fragile, very marginal.

Today we seek to grow and serve at O'Brien Park, our partners, during the Fall Festival from 2 to 5 pm. Come be with us and meet others and have a fun for all ages time, 6147 N. Birmingham.

 Our recovery groups meet at 5:30 and 7:30 pm tonight.

 Tomorrow we have our special annual Thanksgiving Worship Meal and Reverse Offering. This year from 9:30 am to 1 pm we will have four movements of worship and meal and communion. See the full menu liturgy and explanations at www.progressivechurchplanting.blogspot.com. Come and bring friends and experience God in sacred meal and food justice. Come and bring something to add to the salad or soup or potluck.

Tomorrow at 1 pm come or stay for our missional progressives movie and discussion "Of Gods and Men" about a monastic missional community that had a crises of faith and yet continued to serve their Muslim neighbors through dangerous time.

This Thursday at noon for any who need community we will have a "super potluck" for all.

Next Sunday begins the Advent season. We will have special classes watching the Sojourners video series Justice For the Poor each Sunday at 9:30 am followed by our special Advent worship communion service. Then beginning Thursday Dec. 1 we will have a brief weekly Advent Vespers service at 6:30 pm. This follows our usual Tuesday and Thursday Food Pantry service days from 3 to 6 pm.

 

On Tuesday, Nov. 29 at 7 pm at O'Brien Recreation Center we will be part of a special community association meeting for our area focusing again on our project with OU Design Studio on repurposing the Cherokee building into community use; there will also be a presentation on the renewed Vann Green Park Industrial area in our neighborhood; and many other updates and chances to connect with neighbors.

 

We have had full Food Pantry days, teaching about healthy foods and giving out recipes as well as food; we have had a great fall harvest at our new kitchengardenpark and orchard, with much of its yield going to the food pantry already.

 We have been supporting McLain High School Parent GearUp program and Greeley Elementary School student of the month luncheons and a special Christmas toy giveaway. You can help us donate to both through safe online giving at www.turleyok.blogspot.com where you will also read more about our presence and our neighborhoods and vision. We are also working on the ongoing work of community renewal through the McLain foundation, through our disaster response network creation, and through other community partners and connections.

 We also have to bite the utility bullet and get our $1000 deposit paid for gas heating for the winter, and work on preparing our newly opened north wing where the food pantry and classrooms and clothing and lending rooms and restrooms are. So any funds at this special time when we are giving so much to an increasing number of neighbors is deeply appreciated by all.

 

We had a wonderful return visit and inspirational talk and dinner with Sherry Clark of Families And Communities Empowered For Safety. She left us with good ideas and practical advice on how to make our lives and communities safer, and through the Turley Area Alliance Against Crime neighborhood watch meetings we are going to move on to a focus on juvenile justice soon.

 

On behalf of our community group, A Third Place Foundation, I was surprised and pleased to receive special recognition from the statewide Recreation and Parks Society for our contribution to the movement through our partnership with O'Brien and through our beginning of the Miracle among the Ruins Welcome Table Kitchen Garden Park and Orchard in our healthy food desert, a place not only where food is grown but relationships and renewal is as well. And posthumously our Board member and long time sustainable activist Linda Taylor received the Distinguished Service Award from the state organization.

 Stay tuned for our Advent and Christmas month news and reports, as our monthly focus will be on lifting up the lives of children and youth in our area and in the world, and more epistles from the adventurous life here in the 74126 and 74130 and adjoining zips where the life expectancy might be much lower but the blessings are never higher and deeper.

blessings, and see you soon, Ron

www.progressivechurchplanting.blogspot.com www.turleyok.blogspot.com www.missionalprogressives.blogspot.com www.uuchristian.org

A Dozen Ways We Are Changing Our Community

You are invited to come and be with us at these special opportunities to serve our neighbors....see posts below for our regular events and projects each week. Lifting up lives and neighborhoods in the 74126 and 74130 and nearby.

1. Free Turkey dinners to 20 families, beginning Tuesday Nov. 15 at our Food Pantry open Tuesdays and Thursdays 3 to 6 pm.

2. Watching Restrepo movie about the Afghan war and discussion on how we can serve veterans who have served us. Tuesday Nov. 15 6:30 pm free supper included.

3. Special Thanksgiving Meal Worship Service, beginning Sunday 9:30 am Nov. 20 until 1 pm, come anytime you can for as long as you can, but the earlier the better; The Welcome Table Church sponsoring; where worship is more like a party than a program. Followed at 1 pm by the movie and then discussion on Of Gods and Men, french with english subtitles, sponsored by the missional progressives group, about French monks living in a monastery who serve their Muslim neighbors and decide to stay at risk of their own lives during battles between corrupt government forces and terrorists. Then Thanksgiving Potluck and Games on Thursday, Nov. 24, noon. RSVP for both events if you can but don't let that stop you from coming.

4. Raising $400 to provide a classroom of children at Greeley School with Christmas presents; Whirlpool will provide half of the school kids with presents; we are working with others to provide gifts to all. Join with our holiday service effort.

5. Raising $500 to sponsor the Parent Student GearUp Event, Nov. 17 at McLain High School, trying to help close the educational justice gap for our children on Tulsa's northside; this program works with parents and students to prepare them for the testing programs and to get them ready, emotionally and academically, for entering higher education.

6. Repurposing Cherokee School. We began this partnership with the OU Graduate Design Studio with a community workshop on Nov. 5. We are continuing it this month at the community center getting residents ideas and attitudes about the future of our area and dreaming possibilities and partnerships for reopening Cherokee with a community focus. We will conclude the community input at the Turley Area Community Association meeting Tuesday, Nov. 29 at 7 pm at O'Brien Park Recreation Center.

7. We are partnering with O'Brien in honor and memory of our recently deceased Board Member Linda Taylor to sponsor a community Fall Celebration event at the Park Center, 6147 N. Birmingham Ave., Saturday, Nov. 19, from 2 to 5 pm. Games, refreshments, and more. Free.

8. Feeding The Neighborhood. Besides our twice weekly food pantry, which also hands out recipes and samples of meals that can be made with pantry items, we will be distributing 125 boxes of food on Friday, Jan. 13, from 11 am to Noon, thanks to our partnership with the Community Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma. Come to the pantry and sign up for the Mobile Van visit.

9. Welcoming the Leadership Tulsa participants to the Turley Far Northside area, Wednesday, Dec. 14. Come help us host this group of community leaders as they learn about our transforming community renewal work on a grassroots level.

10. The KitchenGardenPark and Orchard at 6005 N. Johnstown Ave. Due to the season we have stopped our regular gatherings, but we are still working to prepare more of the site for the next growing season. If interested in a garden, or helping with events and more, contact Bonnie Ashing through the Center or at bjashing@aol.com.

11. We are updating two of our ongoing projects inside the community center: our Community Clothing GiveAway being better organized and focused and expanding into a Community Tools and Services Lending Library, and our Computer Center. Come help and check it out in the weeks ahead as we launch them in the new year. And start to renovate our future much larger Community Room.

12. Stay tuned for news about upcoming Christmas celebrations, and New Years Eve events, music concerts, Volunteer GiveBack Days, and our Community Connections programs in Turley with the University of Oklahoma.

We have a lot going on but we can't do it without you. And we can't continue to do amazing things that we haven't even imagined yet until you help us imagine them. Thanks in advance.