A THIRD PLACE COMMUNITY FOUNDATION: July 2012

We are entering another round of Excessive Heat Alert and Ozone Days beginning tomorrow so we are hoping to keep the Community Center here at 5920 N. Owasso Ave. open as a Cooling Station on those days this week from 1 to 5 pm to give people here in our area especially without means and transportation a little place to get a small break from the heat and their own utility bills. Call 918 691 3223 or 918 794 4637 to make sure we are open; volunteers needed to help us keep it open this week. The Turley United Methodist Church at 6050 N. Johnstown Ave. across from our community park will be open Saturday Sunday and Monday from 2-6 pm as a cooling station as we will be closed those dys. Donations for us to keep it open appreciated online at www.turleyok.blogspot.com.

We also have ongoing volunteers working at the Food Pantry on Tuesday and Friday mornings. Also at the Kitchen GardenPark and Orchard at 6005 N. Johnstown Ave. on Monday and Thursday evenings and Saturday mornings. Also volunteers are needed at Sarah's Residential Living as our partner works to rehabilitate abandoned houses into small intimate homes for seniors by McLain High School, this current project at 1370 E. 53rd St. N. beginning on Saturdays at 9:30 am. Please support the North Tulsa Farmers Market on Tuesdays from 9 am to 2 pm at Tulsa Community College Northeast Campus at Apache and Harvard, and also on Saturdays from 8:30 am to Noon at the Newsome Community Farm at 2620 E. 56th St. N. We need to keep dollars turning over in our abandoned place of Empire; it is a social justice action to come volunteer or support people and events in our area. We also have our weekly Recovery Group sessions at the Center at 6 and 7:30 pm on Saturdays; and the local Neighborhood Watch group will meet Thursday, July 26, at the Center at 6:30 pm.

We have begun a local Souls and Soles walking group which meets most Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays at 7:30 am either at the Center to walk on the Osage Prairie Trail or at O'Brien Park Center to walk on its trails. Call or text 918 691 3223 to verify on particular dates, or email me if interested; we may move it up to 7 am in these extra hot days. We also may walk in neighborhoods, and sometimes bring dogs along.

This Saturday, July 21, from 7 am on: Work Day at the Community Center at 5920 N. Owasso Ave. to prepare for our big Auction Fundraiser (see below on it for Sept. 15).

This Saturday July 21 from 5-7 pm the monthly community benefit dinner at the Odd Fellows Lodge 6227 N. Quincy Ave. Spaghetti Dinner $5 all you care to eat and children under ten eat free.

We are excited to announce a new partnership with the Legal Aid Society of Eastern Oklahoma who will have representatives here to meet with our residents about various legal issues, and who have left us with a legal resource center of information to give out to residents. They are here most days during the Food Pantry Hours on Tuesday and Friday mornings but feel free to call 918 691 3223 or 918 794 4637 to verify or set up a time to speak with one of their advisors. There are tremendous needs for this in our area, and much misinformation about legal issues, and we are glad to open up this service.

Wednesday, July 25 from Noon to 3 pm Pool Party for the Community at O'Brien Park Recreation Center and Pool; we are trying to raise funds to give away the $5 per person tickets to families and persons in our area to go relax and find relief. We are also raising funds to help send families to the pool on their own schedules when it is open between now and Aug. 12. We also need to help show that the pool is useful and needed here even if people don't have the means to take advantage of it, because like our schools here and post office here it too could be in danger due to money cutbacks; communities matter, especially communities where people don't have the same alternatives as in other places, and pools are not just for kids, but this one is used also by our seniors and others for water aerobics, for example. Donations at the same website above.

the very important Turley TownHall Meeting on Tuesday July 31 at 7 pm at O'Brien Park Recreation Center, 6147 N. Birmingham Ave; we will be adding names to our list of neighborhood leaders and disaster response network leaders so please come and help us, as well as get the latest updates about our area from local and county and state officials; bring your concerns and thanks to share....

And any or all are welcome to join us for any or all of our missional community group gatherings on Sunday from 9:30 am on, as we will continue to hold prayer workshops on various practices before our communion and then our common meal and little service projects. This Sunday July 22 we will have a study on the Psalms and Praying the Psalms as a followup to this past Sunday's class on Praying the Hours, renewing and refreshing the soul in simple living for the service of God to others. On Sunday July 29 we will focus on the contemporary application of the Benedictine "Rule of Life" through the new book and DVD series by the new monastic leader Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove.

Thursday, Aug. 2 10 am to noon volunteers especially needed for our next Mobile Van Food Giveaway Day at Cherokee School, 6001 N. Peoria Ave. with the Food Bank and our local Pantry at the Community Center. We will need volunteers to rotate through because of the heat of the outside event; donations of water and ice are also appreciated. The event is from 11 am to Noon and we load into cars of our neighbors some three tons of food in just one hour. We are down to our last 15 vouchers for the event we have been holding every other month; those in need who are in our northside zipcodes of 74126, 74130, 74073 need to come to the Food Pantry to pick up their vouchers. Our regular Pantry hours are from 9:30 to Noon every Tuesday and Friday.

Thursday, Aug. 2, on the anniversary day of the Turley Wildfires, our Grow Turley group will meet at 3:30 pm to commemorate the date, assess where we are, and engage in our ongoing disaster response and abandoned properties and other community issues work such as incorporation, etc. Here at the Center.

Super Spud Spectacular!! Community Dinner to raise funds for our foundation and our work at the community center, food pantry, kitchengardenpark and orchard, and with our partners in the area; Saturday, Aug. 18 5 to 7 pm at the Lodge at 6227 N. Quincy Ave. Please plan now to come build bridges across the neighborhoods and peoples and raise funds for our missional work here in our zipcodes.

Sat. Sept. 15, 10 a.m BIG BENEFIT AUCTION here at the Community Center, by Jay Litchfield of Bid Loud, helping us auction off many donated wonderful pieces of furniture and appliances and materials and books and mis. This will be our big fundraiser of the year; we need all to participate and help us carry it off; and afterwards we will have our great large space in the South Building to begin remodelling for community use. Help us take our next step forward. Plan now and share the news. We will also have an event page on facebook for you to join and share there also.

Sat. Oct. 13 an all day anti-poverty Far North Community Renewal Conference. More details coming. But a free event for all partners and local residents, like the ones we had with the OU Graduate Social Work Dept. the past few years. This one will begin with a morning detailed tour of our two mile service area from 46th to 76th St. and Osage County Line to Highway 75, followed by lunch and questions and answers,and an inspirational and educational talk and reading by Ann Patton, author of the recent book Dan's War on the life and lessons and legacy of Father Dan Allen who was a community organizer and activist in our area for many years, and with community leader Terry McGee, with small groups meeting to plan responses and continuing projects with our many partners. RSVP and let us know also if you would like to be on the planning committee. More details soon.

We can only do this with your help. Neighbors helping neighbors. Supporters from all over the world being a part of our presence here through their support at www.turleyok.blogspot.com. Find one way to help support one of our projects. Bring your dream or project to us to help nurture. Become a partner if you are in our area.

Our food pantry at The Welcome Table Community Center, 5920 N. Owasso Ave., often has empty shelves because of the tremendous food insecurity and hunger needs here in the 74126 74130 and 74073 zip codes, especially for healthy food. Our life expectancy is 14 years lower than it is just six miles south of our area in mid-town Tulsa.

The images on this post show a little of what we can offer to people in need here, where the numbers of people we serve has grown a third in just the past month during the summer months when families here don't have the free meals at schools during the rest of the year, and because of school closings we haven't been able to yet this year offer our Summer Cafe presence as we have in recent years where we served more children than anywhere else in the greater area. Because of our arrangement with the Food Bank, our funds can go so much further in buying food than what individuals can buy at the store and donate to us, so please help us keep our pantry looking as good as this by donating to us, even on a regular basis if possible through the online donation button here on this page; or grow an extra row in your own garden for the hungry and donate to us; and come help volunteer with us on Food Pantry days Tuesdays and Fridays 9:30 am to Noon, and/or come harvest for the pantry with us at our KitchenGardenPark on Mondays and Thursdays 6 pm and plant with us on Saturday mornings at 7 am on.

A little of your life goes a long way here in the life of others. And we have fun!!.