Coming Events in Turley Area: Health Survey Gift Cards, Public Meeting, Heritage Lunch, CleanUp Day, Movie, Gardens, Schools, Benefit Dinners, More

TURLEY AREA COMING EVENTS For All

@ The Welcome Table Community Center, 5920 N. Owasso Ave. and elsewhere in the area, 918-794-4637

The University of Oklahoma Turley/NorthTulsa area Community Health Summer 2011 Project: Take a health attitudes survey and get a free Visa gift card to use at local northside stores. Come to the COMMUNITY ASSOCIATION Public Meeting, Tuesday Aug. 30 at 7 pm at The Community Center to participate. Must be 18 or over and not taken the survey before, and live in the 74126 or 74130 zipcodes or nearby to them. Meet local officials. A community health month project of Turley's local nonprofit A Third Place Community Foundation.

Turley Area Disaster Response Planning, and Community Leadership Coordination, Thurs., Sept. 1, 2 pm, and first Thursdays of the month at the Community Center, 5920 N. Owasso. We will be joined by leaders of Tulsa Partners to discuss development of a local disaster response plan, and continuing issues of incorporation, area planning, and response to the recent fires, needs for sidewalks, lights, and more.

Benefit Bean Dinner for Turley Fire Department, in response to the recent fires, Sat. Sept. 3, Noon to 5 pm, Fire Station, 6408 N. Peoria.

Free Back to School Workshops and Conference For All Families in elementary, junior, and senior high, Sat. Sept. 10, 8:30 am to 1 pm, McLain School, 4949 N. Peoria, for more info call Andrea Walker 918-830-7016, walkean7@gmail.com. Sponsored by Metropolitan Baptist Church.

Back to School Night, Greeley School, Tuesday, Sept. 13. Help us help the students, teachers, families, 63rd and N. Cincinnati (Martin Luther King Blvd) Ave.

Turley Area Litter Clean-Up Day and Heritage Lunch and Planning Groups and more, 8 am to 2 pm, community center, 5920 N. Owasso; free trash bags, bottled water, free lunch for volunteers, workshops, information. Come pick up the trash off our streets, have fun, free lunch, do planning of future events, share stories of Turley area past.

Benefit Spaghetti Dinner for Fire Victims, Turley Odd Fellows Lodge, 6227 N. Quincy Ave., All Welcome, Monday, Sept. 26, 5 pm, $5 meal.

Movie Club, Education Focus Month, “October Sky” Wed. Sept. 28, 6:30 pm, community center, free pizza popcorn. A movie about the real story of the 1960s Rocket Boys of West Virginia who proved their world wrong about what they were supposed to do with their life, thanks to a supportive teacher who believed in them.

Community Garden Gatherings Every Saturday 8 to 10 am, Park, 6005 N. Johnstown Ave. …Saturdays, 5 pm Jerks Anonymous, 7:30 pm, Alcoholics Anonymous, community center…TURLEY WATER BOARD PUBLIC MEETING LAST WORKING DAY OF MONTH 8:30 AM AT THE WATER DEPT…. TURLEY FIRE AND RESCUE MEETINGS THURSDAYS 7 PM, Fire Station.

National News on Turley and Us and the Response to Heat Wave and Fires and More

CBS Radio just interviewed us about Turley about a story on Oklahoma heat wave (http://www.cbsnews.com/2718-100_162-296.html?tag=hdr;wnav), after AP did yesterday (see http://hosted2.ap.org/MAQUI/ENTAPNEWSTICKER/Article_2011-08-20/id-41612cd9dcf346e2b31bef2110d79629), about our community center response during the heat wave, fires, and all here in our community lately; no news story is able to capture all that needs to be said and just one little sentence or two barely scratches the surface...

about life in poverty areas especially when heat wave makes it even tougher on folks without ac, without cars, without access to malls, who walk without sidewalks to grocery stores and schools, and then the shutting down of post office coming after shutting the school, and the fires and home losses and depletion of resources for the fire department and the community center....and those with AC, like our situation, are having theirs breaking down and not able to replace; fortunately schools going back here this week so kids will have a cool place, though for many walking back in the heat is tough.

and then our center which acts as cooling station in afternoons and provides water, food, TV computers, games, etc. has its own AC wear down from so much use and eventually this past week wear out, plumbing breaks, and the breakin after the fires takes computers, phones..

....so with all that hard to contain to a cute blurb and hard to shut me up, but I do appreciate very much of the national news and attention, helping people perhaps to see what they don't in normal run of their day see or experience; like how hard it is for people in the heat wave who work day labor outdoors and rely on mowing lawns and small day jobs, working in heat or not being able to find work like they used to; worrying about paying electric and water bills so not eating but very little to save up for the bills to come....

but like we said at worship in the park this morning, being here is what counts, and doing things poorly but doing them is what counts and what lasts; so tomorrow we will be taking again the ice chests of bottled water out to the streets, and hope to get AC replaced asap and then find ways to pay for it later....and to learn from this summer and disasters how to be present even more and better; we will be meeting at the center thursday sept 1 at 2 pm, if AC gets replaced, with area leaders and those from Tulsa Partners about the disaster response plan ideas and process for next time we have mass evacuations from fires or possible floods tornadoes etc. And we are still out promoting all community events like the fund raiser for the Turley Fire Dept. Sat. Sept. 3 noon to 5 pm $5 per person bean dinner at the fire station 6408 N. Peoria; don't want to miss that chance to help and get some good food....And we will keep hosting community celebrations to remind us of the abundance of life together even in the midst of the things that try to drive us to thinking only about ourselves; and we have a community history and heritage lunch planned at the center for noon on Sat. Sept. 17 after a morning of service cleaning up our community. and our Sept. focus will be on educational justice, and our movie will be "October Sky" Wed. Sept. 28 6:30 pm.

...we will continue to look at the deeper systemic issues of justice at the same time we do the daily response of one to one needs that comes up; we will be talking Tuesday Aug. 23 at 1:30 pm with politicians about trying to get the post office to work with us to staff our own postal center with their help here in the center or with a local business interested in it ...On Wednesday Aug. 24 we keep our focus on Community health month here with the movie "Sicko" and discussion and free food at 6:30 pm and hope we can do it in the center but if AC not replaced by then will find another place for it...Then thursday evening Aug. 25 we host the local neighborhood leaders safety and watch meetings of the turley area alliance against crime...

....and speaking of community health month, we found out we can extend for a few more weeks our summer health survey program with OU where we give out to local residents gift cards to use for their time taking the surveys with us; so we get more data, can reach more areas of the community, and pump more money directly back to the people here in our neighborhoods, and build connections to our projects and one another at the same time; we hope to have more health events at school, community meeting, and again at the north tulsa farmers market to reach people living here on the northside....another reason to get our AC replaced in time for our the community meeting next week and the community leadership meeting....

...Even when the Center is shut down because of the AC out we take the Center to the Community as we did this past Wednesday providing a pizza and salad lunch for all the teachers at the Horace Greeley Elementary School, now our closest school; it was a time to promote reconciliation of teachers from two schools that had merged due to the closing of Cherokee school; allowing teachers time and place to eat together and visit all together is a rare thing for a school where schedules and more keep all so busy and apart, but we want to do more of this and find ways to promote teachers building relationships with one another in order to help foster that among the students who are going through all the changes of closed schools and new schools too.

....finally while all of this is the arms and legs hands and feet and body of the church being the church int he community for the community and with people of varying faiths and no faith communities, our worship circles, like this morning at the park in the relative cool of the early morn, are the heart, and we have real, relaxed, and relational times, sharing life, getting in touch with all that sustains us, so that we can share and be the church in many ways while we are out in the world....So this Thursday we will be sharing worship with Phillips theological Semianry, 905 N. Mingo, at 11:30 am followed by lunch as some of us in the Unitarian Universalist sphere provide the chapel liturgy for communion. You also get a good homily from PTS President Gary Peluso-Verdend....Then next Sunday The Welcome Table Universalist Church will go on the road to Stillwater as I will be preaching at the UU Church there; we will carpool and caravan and then have some fun in Stillwater after the fun of worship of course.

will try to post more links and updates at www.turleyok.blogspot.com and www.progressivechurchplanting.blogspot.com

Turley Community Health FunFest Sat. Aug. 13 9 am to 1 pm; celebrating community after the fires

Come to the community center at 5920 N. Owasso Ave. behind Turley Tag Agency this Saturday as we celebrate community, especially after the fires and evacuations from last week when our center was turned into a Red Cross response station. Thanks to all who helped then and continue to help now.

We will have live music at 11 am by Johnny Cervantes and The Oklahomans; we will have free community resources and information tables to help your families with many issues; we will have classes and conversation on getting better health care led by a Medical Doctor; we will have clothing and more giveaway, book sale, and OU Community Health and Social Work partners will be here giving health care attitude surveys for us and we will be giving out $10 gift cards to Quick Trip for those who take the surveys, while they last. And we will have free pizza at noon. And children's activities.

Plus come hear about our Community Orchard and Gardens to grow healthy food for our area which has the lowest life expectancy in the Tulsa area, and most poverty; plus come hear and see the vision of what the community center can be and become. Bring Food for our Food Drive. See the Muhammad Ali Peace Garden. And more...All are welcome. Spread the news.

Channel 6 Story on $25,000 Grant For the KitchenGardenPark

http://www.newson6.com/story/15213874/grant-volunteers-create-turley-community-garden


We have already begun making big transformations clearing out the old trash and debris to make room for the orchard and the garden beds, but with this grant from the Federal Home Loan Bank, with the help of Turley's Freedom Bank, and the Tallgrass Resource and Conservation District, you will really be able to see a transformation and creation of a new place to grow healthy food together, to meet and greet neighbors, and make connections to change our community for the better. Information is available at the site at 6005 N. Johnstown Ave. on how to be a part of the Garden. Or call 918-430-1150, 918-794-4637, or 918-691-3223. Thanks for all the helpers already.

Post Office Set To Close Sept. 10: Help Us Protest and Plan A Free Community Post Office here at the Center

Even though Turley was left off the list of 3700 post offices being closed that was published in the Tulsa World, the post office has confirmed that Turley's post office will be closed on Sept. 10. We are trying to find out if we can get a "village post office" for our area, perhaps in our community center. The Tulsa World is set to run a news story on the closing of Turley and others that were left off the massive list provided by the post office recently. It should be published on Sat. Aug. 6.

We believe:
It is not right to close the post office in our area where we have the poor and the elderly without the means to get four miles away to the other post service; do it where this is possible;
It is not right where the residents affected are not the ones with computers and internet service as an alternative which is the reason the postal service says volume is down; do it where computers are prevalent,
It is not right because where volume is down here it is because the hours of service have been being cut over the years making it difficult to people to use the existing location, and there has been no public signage or promotion of the office and where it is to attract newcomers. One of the first acts we did when we set up our community center was protest the neglect of the post office which was located next door to where we were because the American flag at the post office was torn and tattered; it was replaced, but was a sign of neglect;
It is not right because the people in this area do not have access or means to an alternative like fedex or ups offices as they do in other parts of the Tulsa area; do it where there are alternatives.

Let your federal official representatives know how you feel about this. Contact information through their websites Rep. John Sullivan http://sullivan.house.gov/Contact/, Senator Tom Coburn http://coburn.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/contactsenatorcoburn?p=ContactForm and Senator Jim Inhofe http://inhofe.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=contact.contactform and ask them to do the right thing and keep the post office open where it is needed the most, which is what government resources are meant to do, filling in the gaps.

Stay tuned for news of organizing and protesting meetings and exploring options.

Greenhouse of the Possible: Summer of Renewal on Far Northside

Hi all.

Put some extra bottles of water in your car as you drive our area and hand them out to those walking and without, or drop them off to those waiting at bus stops, or bring them to us as we do so.

While I was away working for a few weeks out of state, we at A Third Place Community Foundation had here the Great Orchard Planting for the Northside on June 26, and the continued emergence of the community gardens going along with the orchard to feed those in the 74126 and 74130 zips, and to build community connections while we do so. See other posts for the links to the TV and newspaper coverage of the big day. Thanks to all the hard working residents from our group and area, and to volunteers who came as far away as Oklahoma City, and to Up With Trees and PSO Oklahoma and Turley United Methodist Church for their assistance, and to project leader Dr. Bonnie Ashing and Cecilia Wessinger who coordinated.

Our New Big News: We were awarded the $25,000 grant from the Federal Home Loan Bank project to take the Welcome Table KitchenGardenPark, 6005 N. Johnstown, to the next level. We look forward to continuing to put money back into our zip codes, as well as creating a place for growing healthy lives and neighborhoods. We have had our first partner family at the garden park, and we also have them at our garden sites at Cherokee School too, and more will be coming, as well as producing vegetables already for our food pantry at the community center. We are eagerly awaiting the actual receipt of the funds so we can put it all into the park project, bridging city of Tulsa and Turley neighborhoods.

Community Health Projects and Summer Events: We are partnering with the University of Oklahoma on a wellness program this summer, a health attitudes survey (along with free $10 gift cards for residents who take the survey) as a prelude to our revolutionary project to begin neighborhood lay health advocates/mentors/master patients called real community health workers. We will unveil it at our booth on Saturday July 16 from 11 am to 2 pm at the Northside YWCA Summer Carnival with the Tulsa Health Department, right around the corner just about from us, in the old Wiley Post School, 54th and N. Madison. Come enjoy the many booths, the free food, and health screenings, and music and more. We will also have survey event days on Wednesday, July 20, 11 am to 1 pm at Cherokee School Cafeteria, 6001 N. Peoria, as part of our Summer Cafe program with Tulsa Schools, and also conducting the surveys as we will have a Big Health Event at our The Welcome Table Community Center, 5920 N. Owasso Ave., on Saturday August 13 from 9 am to 1 pm, and other sites and places may be announced soon. We will have the full list at the booth at the Summer carnival on July 16....This Tuesday afternoon, July 12, we will also host again this year a visit by the OU Medical School summer interns who will be learning about community health from the grassroots and helping us with projects. We hope to have two more events with them during the summer...There are lots more health projects we partner with, even as we work on our own through the healthy food park and our own center projects, so come by to find out about them.

Summer Cafe at Cherokee School: We are still raising funds to keep the daily summer food program going at Cherokee School, which we have sponsored along with Tulsa Schools, Monday through Friday, 11:30 to 12:30 for all under 18 years old; by paying our own staff to run the program here we are able to keep it going all summer long, June 8 to Aug. 5. We feed an average of 30 to 50 children and youth a day. Donations can be made online at the button above. You don't have to have a paypal account to use the donate button. Thanks for all the support....Speaking of schools, we will be partnering this year with Greeley School as well as deepening our involvement with McLain School, and hope to help as needed where we can with Gilcrease and Penn and Monroe. Even while continuing to work with school officials, neighborhood residents, and those interested in finding a healthy community use for the grounds and building at Cherokee and the old Morse school site, and supporting our children no matter where they wind up for school, be it home, online, public, private, etc.

Far Northside/Turley Small Area Planning: We will be hosting a meeting of local and area officials on Thursday, Aug. 4 to keep building connections and next steps for producing a consensus plan for our unique urban/smalltown/rural stretch along North Peoria especially, where now there are inexcusable abandoned dangerous buildings right across from our schools, and blight areas that discourage any efforts to attract groups, residents, businesses to our area. We will be exploring again incorporation of unincorporated areas, but it is just one of the tools we will be employing as we create a new community out of the ruins left behind....In many ways, I say, we are growing from the grassroots a city without a government (yet) as we are de facto involved in early stages of bringing people together to work on our own health department (including our hosting the recovery 12 step group), parks/food/environment/ department, public safety department (last Thursday of each month at 6 pm for the neighborhood safety group btw), Events department, education dept. and chamber of commerce.

The Misc.: Among the still to be announced events, We will be holding soon our summer planning event to schedule many celebrations and events to come for the rest of the year; we always need donations of food for the pantry; we will also be scheduling and holding our big fundraising auction of donated items to us, especially so we can begin when it gets a bit cooler transforming our big building into the Community Room here at the center, where currently we are storing the items. We continue to care for the gardening projects out in the neighborhoods, watering work takes its toll in this heat, and the clothing room is now at full capacity, and we have our computer center back to half its capacity (always looking for donations of new or used computers)....One of our big new donations has come all the way from California as a supporter has shipped us boxes of children's books and health books so we can set up special library areas for children and to support our health projects.

Message: Often I am asked how we do what we do, given that there are no salaries still yet: I respond using phrases like "better to do something poorly than not at all when you are doing life and death matters" "fly by the seat of the pants" "catch as catch can" "relying on grace". Right now on the sign out front of the center it says: "In Brokenness, Here We Are". That means not only are we in a broken area, abandoned by those who want to be places where the cool people are, where there are conveniences and comfort, but it also means we come to you as broken people, as a broken group, still seeking to model a different way of being, with values that run counter or cross to those perpetuated on the television and in the news every day. We are not a faith-based community 501c3, and we have people on our board from a variety of churches and theologies, and our church group pays rent to the foundation, and lord knows our small worship group seems to get smaller and poorer the more we do, and so this is all not just some sneaky evangelical way to bring in people to some organization; but still, faith, hope, and love run through all we do and dedicate ourselves to, and perfection is anathema to faith, hope, and love; shame is anathema to faith, hope, and love; apathy and self-indulgence are anathema to faith, hope, and love...

I close with a quote from Mary Lou Kownacki's book, A Monk in the Inner City, from her opening section on Abandoned Places: "Our goals are modest: to plant daffodils, to rebuild abandoned homes, to paint porches, to read to children, to pray together, to grow vegetables, to become a neighborhood, a community. Nothing spectacular, just a snippet of "the kingdom of God, come on earth as it is in heaven.' "Come, children, let us scatter flower seeds in the neighborhood of no lawns or birds, Let us turn one small street into a greenhouse of the possible."

For those interested in the small group spiritual community side of things here, This Sunday July 10 in worship (come at 10 am each Sunday for the service before the service) we will have a spirited summer hymn sing; on July 17 we will have Question Box Sunday, part 2; on Sunday July 24 I will be in Houston area preaching and on Sunday July 31 I will be preaching at 11 am at Hope Church, 8432 S. Sheridan, on "Where in the World is the Church?" From July 25-29 I will at Western Hills Lodge near Wagoner leading worship on Monday evening and a workshop each afternoon on "Missional Progressives Reimagining The World (and Church)." In August we will have StoryCorps Sundays, bring your favorite meaningful stories out of your lives. And of course communion and common meals anytime we meet which are open to all. more at www.progressivechurchplanting.blogspot.com.

Our renewal work is open to all at any time too; if you want to do something with us at anytime, on your own schedule, just let me know. Ron Robinson, executive director, a third place community foundation.

We Receive $25,000 Federal Home Loan Bank Grant for our KitchenGardenOrchardPark in Turley/NorthTulsa

We just received word that we have been awarded a $25,000 grant from the Federal Home Loan Bank community reinvestment program for our work on the miracle among the ruins The Welcome Table KitchenGarden Park where we recently planted 40 fruit trees for an orchard for our area, located at 6005 N. Johnstown Ave. near suburban hills edition in tulsa and near the historic downtown of Turley. We already have several community garden beds underway at the park, and our first family gardeners growing their healthy food there.

Thanks to Freedom Bank in Turley for their cosponsorship of the grant with us, and to the Tallgrass Resource and Conservation District of the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture for helping us to submit the grant. As soon as we receive the funds we will be doing more park preparation and cleanup on this site where abandoned houses and trash piled up for years on one of our busy thoroughfares. Thanks also to Rita Scott of buy local, buy fresh and Sustainable Oklahoma, and to Rep. Seneca Scott for help in partnering with us.

To volunteer at the park, to have your own garden bed, call 918-691-3223 or the Welcome Table Community Center at 918-794-4637, or email to revronrobinson@aol.com.

Spread the good news about this good news which is just the beginning of much more to come.

Our Turley/NorthTulsa Area June 26 Orchard Event, Community Health Focus, and More This Summer

What a great summer is underway in the far northside 74126 and 74130 zipcodes. Here is your invitation to events coming up, and updates, and opportunities to be a part of our mission of renewing community, empowering residents, and growing healthy lives and neighborhoods, through small acts of justice done with great love.

First, the Big News:
You and others are invited to attend the public event on Sunday, June 26 beginning at noon here at 6005 N. Johnstown Ave. as we are joined by the National Fruit Tree Planting Foundation and Edy's Fruit Bars marking the planting of the new orchard that day that was recently won in a national competition for our emerging Welcome Table KitchenGardenPark.

While we were not happy with the selection of the day for beginning the orchard and festivities, which was picked by the organizations sponsoring the national competition, we will be making it a momentus day for the far northside anyway as we combat food deserts and blight in our area with this project we have called the "miracle among the ruins." We hope you will be there, to receive our thanks for your support, and to see the latest developments, and enjoy the festivities, and tell others, and dream of ways to partner with the park and duplicate it elsewhere.

It is hard to believe that just one year ago we were still trying vigorously to raise the funds to buy the rundown abandoned property from N. Kenosha to Johnstown and 60th to 61st Streets atop a hill from where you can see downtown Tulsa and other landmarks. We not only were able to raise the funds, but used the property to help us buy another bigger more historic rundown abandoned church building in our area and turn it into a community center asset, and then this Spring we managed to garner enough online support to win the orchard in the first round of voting at www.communitiestakeroot.com.

While we will be there all day with volunteers working on the site with the arborist from the Fruit Tree Foundation (and we hope you will join us anytime from 8 am on), we will pause at noon for the announcements and recognitions and words of support. Edy's Fruit Bars will be giving away free fruit bars, building a bench for the site to commemorate the occasion, and the arborist will be unveiling the fruit trees planted and turning on the irrigation system installed by the foundation, and then he will be conducting a free public workshop for our residents on fruit tree planting and care. The trees are being purchased from local nursery Worley's in north Tulsa County.

We have been installing and planting community garden beds already as well as preparing the site at the park for the orchard section. We also are hoping we can announce the awarding of a new grant too, which we have applied for in partnership with local Freedom Bank and with the help of the USDA Tallgrass RC&D, but even if it is otherwise we will be able to show the vision of what will be coming.

I, unfortunately, had previous travel and work plans for the end of June and will be unable to be there (which is a double shame since it is my birthday too), all the more reason why I hope you will come and support one another and residents, and contact Bonnie Ashing as park project leader and coordinator of the event If you have questions or rsvps, please contact her at bjashing@aol.com or 918 346 3475. Please feel free to forward this on to others in your associations as well.

Again, at a time when governments are shutting parks and community centers, we are growing our own from the grassroots for the grassroots.

In Other News:
Summer Cafe at Cherokee
We managed to get the Summer Cafe program to be held at Cherokee School again this summer under our supervision and we are operating it from June 8 to Aug. 5 because we are a community organization and not dependent on school staff to operate it on their schedule. Already we are seeing more children and youth than we had the past two years. Free lunch for anyone in the world, we say, who is 18 or under at the school cafeteria, 6001 N. Peoria Ave., from 11:30 to 12:30.

Austin Guests Serving Our Area
We were joined recently by members of Wildflower Church in Austin as we cleared the park site for the orchard, as we put together some of the garden beds for the park, as we created the new Prairie Trails native plant Park right across the street from our new community park, as we built the Muhammad Ali Peace Garden at the community center, as we beautified and cleaned up the major welcome intersection on North Lewis and 66th St., as we planted a garden bed with residents at Sarah's Residential Living Center near McLain High School, and worked on projects at the center itself. We are looking forward to a group coming from Dallas at the end of July. Groups for a day or more are always welcome to come learn and serve.

Partnerships for Health With OU
In July we will be partnering with OU Community Health to conduct health attitude surveys in our area, something that will also benefit residents economically with incentives for taking the survey, along with local businesses where the incentives will be good for. This is the initial public step in our movement toward launching the community health worker program in north and west Tulsa, a project we have been working on with OU for a few years now, even when we had the clinic; now that the clinics have been closed in north Tulsa this project is more needed than ever, and will help radically reshape health care delivery by creating neighborhood health mentors for those who are the most frequent users of the emergency rooms and urgent care.
One of the places and partnerships for our health attitude surveys will be at the annual summer carnival for the YWCA northside and Tulsa Health Dept. Saturday July 16 from 11 am to 2 pm, at the YWCA on 54th and N. Madison. Come support this free fun for all carnival and get great health information and screenings and see our booth.
We are also working to set up in July our community health care conversations at our center again this summer with neighborhood residents and with summer interns from OU. These are always educational conversations for all. More info as we get the dates set.
And we had a very good poverty consciousness raising workshop with local residents and the incoming graduate social work students at OU which we helped coordinate and held at O'Brien Recreation Center recently.

Meetings and Movies and More
We hosted and helped to coordinate recent meetings to create a leadership and planning focus group to concentrate on issues of how to attack the growing problems of abandoned commercial and residential properties in our unincorporated side, how to create a plan for growth and community vision here north of 56th St. in the wake of the closing of the Cherokee School, and how to bring conditions of unhealthy and blighted sites to the attention of the county commissioners and departments. We are looking again at steps toward incorporation, not as an end in itself, but as a possible means to the bigger end of community renewal. Attacking the numerous abandoned and dangerous sites near our children is the common top project for this new leadership group. Our next planning meeting will be at the Center Aug. 4. Also remember the Turley community association meeting is Tuesday June 28 at 7 pm at O'Brien Recreation Center. Congratulations to Northridge Neighborhood Association for its first meeting this past week for the area around McLain High.

....Speaking of Cherokee, and Alcott also, in our service area which were both closed as Tulsa public schools, we have met with area legislators to explore options on how to keep the buildings in community use.

We had a wonderful time hosting and watching and discussing the live webstream from the Childrens Defense Fund and the documentary on PBS about the Freedom Riders during the 50th anniversary of that pivotal time in civil rights history. We also again sponsored a public showing of the Dorothy Day Story movie Entertaining Angels and related it to our work and vision here. And we were once again one of the few presences from our whole northside area, along with the YWCA northside, in the Tulsa Pride Parade and Festivities sponsored by the Equality Center.

We have supported and will continue promoting the North Tulsa Farmers Market at Tulsa Community College NE campus on Wednesdays from 2 to 5 pm and Saturday mornings on 56th St. between Highway 75 and N. Lewis. We have our ongoing Neighborhood Safety group the last Thursdays of the month; weekly recovery 12 step groups, our clothing and food pantry (our computer center is temporarily shut down as the computers are in need of updating and repairing, stay tuned for relaunch news in July).

And we worship on Sunday mornings with conversation and common meal and service to others for all who are interested in a free universalist Christian missional community. The next two Sundays we will "be the church" in the park as we gather to serve and celebrate and prepare for the Orchard Event.

Be a partner with us in person and/or through donating to make all this happen; no one draws a salary; one hundred percent into mission; go to www.turleyok.blogspot.com and donate; you can use debit/credit cards as paypal is not required.

Thanks, blessings, and more to come,

Ron Robinson
Executive Director, A Third Place Community Foundation, operating among its many projects The Welcome Table Community Center and The Welcome Table KitchenGardenPark
renewing community, empowering residents, growing healthy lives and neighborhoods
5920 N. Owasso, Turley, OK 74126
www.turleyok.blogspot.com
www.progressivechurchplanting.blogspot.com
www.missionalprogressives.blogspot.com
www.uuchristian.org

A Simple Ask For A Big Need: A Little Extra Right Now For Those Without Extra

Very quickly: We are doing a little extra here for those without, and so could you help us with a little extra you might have? We are half way there raising the funds for the free daily lunch program we coordinate here for children in our area and partnering with Cherokee School. Need $500 to go. Have already served more in our first week than we did first week last year...Also, because of the early planting date for the orchard, three months before our plans, we have had to deplete the account to pay for installing electric, and bringing in large bin and for removal of all the debris illegally dumped on the site over the years the former houses there were abandoned and the old trees on site still damaged and dangerous from the 2007 ice storm.

You don't have to have a paypal account to use the donate button on this page, and it is safe and easy with debit/credit card, or send check payable to A Third Place Community Foundation, 5920 N. Owasso Ave. Turley, OK 74126. We don't get the chance to send out all the thank yous as we should to those who have supported us and meant so much to us, so consider this thanks in advance and blessings from those whom you bless.

And keep us in your prayers as we await word on a $25,000 Federal Home Loan Bank grant which we should find out about later this month for our "miracle among the ruins" park project, but even if we get the news so much is needed now to get in the orchard and get set for a humdinger of a Fourth of July Party on the hill where just a year ago there was so much blight and danger. We also have our Prairie Trails Park almost finished as well across the street from the Welcome Table Park, and next to the resident-made trail from subdivison to store they walk each day a mile away.

100 percent of donations go into missons; no one draws a salary yet. Don't think your little extra doesn't make a huge difference in lives here; it is the only way we have been able to accomplish all the amazing things we have.

All Invited To the New Orchard Planting Event Party Sunday, June 26, at our new community park 6005 N. Johnstown

You are all invited to attend the Orchard Event for the public on Sunday, June 26 beginning at noon along with the National Fruit Tree Planting Foundation and Edy's Fruit Bars marking the planting of the new orchard that day that was recently won in a national competition for our emerging Welcome Table KitchenGardenPark at 6005 N. Johnstown Ave. Please pass this on to others.

Volunteers are always needed to help us plant that day or to come help us clean and prepare the site before hand, and to take on garden plots already installed for growing food for families and our food pantry. To volunteer call project leader Bonnie Ashing, bjashing@aol.com, or 918 3463475.

We were not happy with the selection of the day for beginning the orchard and festivities, which was picked by the organizations sponsoring the national competition, because of short notice, people being gone, and not optimal for planting season, but we will be making it a momentus day for the far northside anyway as we combat food deserts and blight in our area with this project we have called the "miracle among the ruins."

We hope you will be there, to receive our thanks, and to see the latest developments, and enjoy the festivities, and tell others, and dream of ways to partner with the park and duplicate it elsewhere. It is hard to believe that just one year ago we were still trying vigorously to raise the funds to buy the rundown abandoned property from N. Kenosha to Johnstown and 60th to 61st Streets atop a hill from where you can see downtown Tulsa and other landmarks. We not only were able to raise the funds, but used the property to help us buy another bigger more historic rundown abandoned church building in our area and turn it into a community center asset, and then this Spring we managed to garner enough online support to win the orchard in the first round of voting at www.communitiestakeroot.com.

While we will be there all day with volunteers working on the site with the arborist from the Fruit Tree Foundation, we will pause at noon for the announcements and recognitions and words of support. Edy's Fruit Bars will be giving away free fruit bars, building a bench for the site to commemorate the occasion, and the arborist will be unveiling the fruit trees planted and turning on the irrigation system installed by the foundation. The trees are being purchased from local nursery Worley's in north Tulsa County.

We have been installing and planting community garden beds already as well as preparing the site at the park for the orchard section. We also are hoping we can announce the awarding of a new grant too, which we have applied for in partnership with local Freedom Bank and with the help of the USDA Tallgrass RC&D, but even if it is otherwise we will be able to show the vision of what will be coming.

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We Won

Thank you to all who supported and voted for us in the national competition to win a fruit tree orchard for our area. Please feel free to share the following news release and announcement on the orchard, the park, the victory party, and the dedication this week of the Muhammed Ali Peace Garden at the center.
...............

The "TulsaNorth/Turley" neighborhoods will receive a free fruit tree orchard after winning in national online voting competition during the first round of the contest sponsored by the National Fruit Tree Foundation and Edy's Fruit Bars.

More than 21,000 votes were cast from April 15 to May 31 for the proposed park project sponsored by A Third Place Community Foundation, 5920 N. Owasso Ave. The local volunteer nonprofit came in fourth place in the first round out of 120 community contestants, and the top five winners of each round receive an orchard. A party to celebrate the victory will be held at the orchard site, 6005 N. Johnstown Ave., on Thursday, June 9 from 6 to 8 pm. All supporters and area residents are welcome.

A team from the Fruit Tree Foundation will come to the northside area and work with area residents to plant the trees, to install an irrigation system, and to teach community workshops on growing fruit trees in the area, according to Rev. Ron Robinson, executive director of A Third Place Foundation.

The orchard will be planted at the emerging northside "pocket park" begun by the local group that will also include community gardens, play and social and eating areas, and a gazebo for bands. The Welcome Table KitchenGardenPark will be located at 6005 N. Johnstown on an acre overlooking downtown Tulsa where abandoned houses recently stood amid other trash and debris. The foundation purchased the property last year, and had the homes removed and is currently working on preparing the site for the start of the gardens.

"We are located in the 74126 zipcode which has the lowest life expectancy and many nutritional deficiencies," Robinson said. "The park and now the fruit tree orchard, along with our other gardens and health programs and summer daily feeding program at Cherokee School which starts June 8 through Aug. 5, and work with our area partners is aimed at elevating food justice and reversing these trends among our people."

Robinson said once the local group finds out when the planting day will be slated, a call will go out for volunteers to help with the planting, to attend the workshops, and help launch the new community food project.

A Third Place operates both the emerging park as well as the The Welcome Table Community Center and renewal projects in 74126 and 74130 zip codes.

It also received this Spring a grant to create a Muhammad Ali Peace Garden Grant for producing vegetables for families in the area. The garden will be located at the community center with the planting taking place the week of June 6-10 and dedication ceremony being held on Friday, June 10 at 7 pm. Volunteers are welcome. For more information call 918-794-4637, or 918-691-3223, or 918-430-1150 .

Background information and articles on the park can be read at http://turleyok.blogspot.com/2011/04/all-videos-news-design-plans-on-our.html. More information on the orchard competition, held each year, can be seen at www.communitiestakeroot.com.

Join Us For our Big Juneteenth Week of Service June 6-10

Calling all to our Juneteenth Big Mission Week June 6-10 How does this sound for a schedule below?

We can and will be flexible on alternatives and changes on the ground during the week especially in regards to weather. in general we will do outdoor stuff mornings and evenings some when coolest; inside stuff during afternoons. We will have a list of a variety of projects we will offer as opportunities to serve, that involve different skills and level and you can choose. Should have that list posted Monday.

Community Garden and Beautification projects will also include putting in a bed for the Sarah's Residential Living Center in our area, non profit care for seniors in a small home environment; and also planting the Mohammed Ali Peace Garden at our Center received from a grant. Others will be at ongoing sites such as the park where the orchard will go, at an intersection we have reclaimed, at an establish park partner, along the prairie trail, and other guerilla gardening sites at abandoned buildings.

We are non smoking non alcohol no weapons on property.

Big Mission Week Sunday, June 5, Arrival and Welcome 9 pm ish. We will welcome with orientation to the building,

Monday, June 6, Learning/Orientation To Area 9-3. Tour of our Service Area/Mission Field, from 46th to 76th N and Osage Line to Highway 75, discussion of history and current status of the area, issues of economic injustice, food justice, race, class, identifying assets and strengths of our community, and why we are where we are.

5:30 our weekly Bluegrass Jam at the Center

6-9 Pizza dinner and showing of Entertaining Angels movie and discussion of missional church. optional small projects at the Center.

Tuesday June 7 Morning Work at Welcome Table KitchenGardenPark, where orchard will also go.
Afternoon Work at Community Center. Evening Community Potluck and Game Night at the Center, Board Games, Wii, etc. continuing projects in evening as able.

Wednesday June 8
Morning Work at Guerilla Gardening and other blight to beauty Sites in the community.
11:30 am Kickoff of our Daily Summer Cafe feeding program for all in the area 18 and under at Cherokee School just a block away from the community center. Afternoon work at the Center.
Evening Worship 6:30 pm and Free Time in Tulsa area.

Let us know if you have special places you would like to go either this evening or possibly at other times.

Thursday June 9
Morning Work in community gardens, peace garden, etc. Trash Off Streets. Afternoon Work at.the Center.
Evening Orchard in Abandoned Places Miracle Among The Ruins Celebration Party at the KitchenGardenPark site, 6-8 pm. Celebrating our winning an orchard from the National Fruit Tree Foundation.

Friday June 10 Finishing Projects Day and celebrating the peace garden completion at the Center. Jupiter Jump for kids. Live music outdoors and inside in evening.

Sat. June 11. Goodbyes.
10 am cherokee school reunion planning meets
6 pm Gay Pride Entry downtown Tulsa 7:30 pm AA


Rev. Ron Robinson
Turley/North Tulsa OK
www.progressivechurchplanting.blogspot.com
Www.missionalprogressives.blogspot.com
Www.turleyok.blogspot.com
Www.uuchristian.org
9186913223 9184301150

Tulsa World Article on Our Foundation/Center

The Tulsa World recently published an article on our new community center and our projects and our orchard vote competition, and more. Read it here: http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=11&articleid=20110509_11_A13_CUTLIN403855&archive=yes

12 Facts of Hope in Turley/NorthTulsa

Hi all. Hope these 12 areas of making a difference in the world through small acts of justice done with great love will be as inspiring to you as they have been to me, and you will explore ways to partner with us to make even more of an impact here and in your own lives and groups and families.

1. We are currently in fourth place out of 120 in the national fruit tree orchard vote to win a 40 tree orchard for far northside Tulsa. Keep voting for us daily and spreading the news. If we can remain in the top five at the end of May we will win one of the orchards from the National Fruit Tree Foundation which will come plant, teach residents, install irrigation systems. Go to www.communitiestakeroot.com/Plant/Index/. Easy to register and vote. We have fliers and business cards about the contest if you would like to distribute them. Help us combat the food desert of our 74126 zip code.

2. This coming Monday, May 16, at 6:30 pm at our Welcome Table Community Center, 5920 N. Owasso Ave., we will be watching a special documentary being premiered on PBS marking the 50th anniversary of the Freedom Riders. Refreshments available. Bring friends to watch together. We are scheduling a whole series of films for the summer. We had a great cinco de mayo party watching the The Three Amigos and discussing the real roots of the Mexican celebration.

3. A story about our new center and the orchard and the new kitchengardenpark project, 6005 N. Johnstown Ave., ran today in the Tulsa World. You can read it and see the pictures at http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=11&articleid=20110509_11_A13_CUTLIN403855. Share the link with others as a way to promote our orchard vote and renewal projects.

4. We are hosting a weekly bluegrass jam on Mondays at 5:30 pm at the Center. We have the neighborhood safety monthly meetings last Thursday of the month at 6:30 pm. The recovery groups meet Saturday evening. If you have an idea for a support group or regular community meeting let us know.

5. We do not have our community health clinic anymore, but the plans are evolving for a neighborhood or community health worker program in our underserved areas. I travelled with OU representatives to meet with officials at the Oklahoma Health Care Authority about the project, combining community residents and leaders with health providers and people in our neighborhoods who are repeat emergency room users. We are also working on a smaller wellness survey plan for this summer. Our Center's future Health Hub is taking shape.

6. A week ago the decision was made to close our partner in education Cherokee School. Since then we have been present with people in their grief and anger. We bought lunch for all the school teachers and staff last Friday to celebrate the ending of their testing period and to mourn the decision. We have met with parents who are exploring various options and are hoping to use our center and/or investigating charter schools or some other way to make use of the building. At the same time we will be hoping to receive invitations to partner more deeply with the remaining Tulsa public schools in our service area, and plan to help community residents have a voice in how such a vital physical building in our area will be taken care of and used for the good of the community as we meet with school officials. On Saturday May 21 we will be at Cherokee from 11 am to 3 pm for a Farewell Community Open House. Spread the word to all community residents and alumni of the school which dates back to its days before it was a Tulsa public school and was part of the Turley area school district drawing students from many miles around. You can of course read more about my comments to the School Board and others at www.turleyok.blogspot.com and also at www.cherokeeschoolgardenjournal.blogspot.com

7. We received the materials from the Mohammed Ali Peace Garden Grant we received that we had planned to put in at Cherokee with the students there, and now will be working with community children to plant the beds elsewhere in our area, perhaps our community center. We continued to plant and care for all the vegetables gardens and native plant landscape gardens that we started before the closing decision and will continue to grow food for families and our food pantry.

8. We have been notified that because of the school closing we will not be able to host there the daily summer feeding program we have coordinated and paid for the past few years for all under 18 years old. We will be trying to find an alternate site for it that is as convenient to our area children and youth and will report our progress. Next year we hope our center is capable of handling the program ourselves; we continue to have peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and drinks for any who are hungry no matter what age. We are also working with O'Brien Recreation Center to get the word out to those over 60 in our area that they can be a part of a free nutrition program at the recreation center. We have also been working on the gardening projects at the recreation Center and helping to make the park again a place that is oriented to people in the immediate area and not just those from suburbs who come in for organized sports.

9. We presented 25 plus pages of signed petitions opposing the closing of the 74126 post office here on North Peoria when we met with representatives of the USPS and Sen. Inhofe's office at the post station. We told them it was immoral to close the facility in an area where the most vulnerable needed it without the means to take advantage of alternatives as those in areas of higher income do. We told them that if the internet is causing the post office problems the solution shouldn't be to close stations in areas where people have the least amount of email and internet use. We told them that the postal authorities have not put out any signage in the leased space they use or promotion that the post office is where it is and for all the new mobile residents in the area they don't know it exists, and worse have cut the hours down so that people who cant get away to use it from 10 am to 2 pm can't use it when they would otherwise. And at the same time we have begun talking and researching how we could set up a postal support center at our community center in case they go ahead and close down our post office. Come get more petitions to distribute to protest the possible closure.

10. We have work progressing on the Welcome Table KitchenGardenPark with the north area trees and debris scheduled to be removed this week so we can begin to plant garden beds and begin scheduling events and parties in the new northside park space, even as we keep working to clear and prepare and equip the rest of the miracle among the ruins greenspace project on the hill overlooking downtown Tulsa, a bridge between neighborhoods. We are scheduling a work day on the site, 6005 N. Johnstown Ave., for this Saturday May 14 at 10 am. Start spreading the word to folks you know or groups you know that they can adopt a bed to grow their own food we will help them plant. Also this Friday, March 13, from 2 to 5 pm we will be supporting the McLain High School Greenhouse Plant Sale, 4949 N. Peoria Ave. Come see the transformation underway and support the McLain Initiative.

11. We are going to be working with one of our partners in the area, Sarah's Residential Living on N. 53rd St. to plant a garden for their use and with their residents. We had also consulted with the Dept. of Human Services to help them launch a community garden at their office on North Peoria. And we have picked back up on our initial project we did with OU Tulsa graduate social work students, the abandoned properties project; we have been touring and planning ways to bring attention to the horrible unsafe conditons of commercial abandoned buildings on North Peoria in our area, and are planning guerilla gardening actions and BYOT events, bring your own tables,where we hold community potlucks on the grounds next to the abandoned by their owner properties, and plant sunflowers, and try to work with owners when we can locate them to clean up and/or tear down structures that endanger our children and send a message that our area isnt important.

12. We have the food pantry expansion underway; donations are being taken, and food being given away; we also have restarted our "gently used" clothing room, and we will be inheriting the childrens clothing room that was being operated at Cherokee School now that it is being shut. We have added a new computer to our computer center but need three or four more. We will be scheduling an auction of donated items to raise needed funds to continue the building renovation and the park creation. We are also planning to host mission trips from churches coming from Texas and would love to do so with others even from here in the Tulsa area. Summer calendar of events planning will be done soon with our leaders and will be listed in the next email news. At the worship gatherings on Sunday we are discussing this month the book "Change the World" by Michael Slaughter. http://www.amazon.com/Change-World-Recovering-Message-Mission/dp/1426702973 We combine mission service with conversation worship and common meal. More events on the church side will be planned and announced soon too.

For more go to www.progressivechurchplanting.blogspot.com, www.missionalprogressives.blogspot.com,

Thanks, blessings