Renewing “A Sense of Place” In Far
North Tulsa
Justice. Food. Art. Parties.
WE ARE PLACE-BASED. Our Area: The
74126 and 74130 zipcodes, especially 46th St. N. to 76th
St. N. and Highway 75 to the Osage County Line. Part of the Tulsa McLain School
District. Includes both Tulsa incorporated area and the unincorporated
community of Turley. Also our Free Food Store serves Sperry. Our Community
GardenPark and Orchard has no geographic restrictions. Some 11,500 residents in
our two mile radius; three-fourths of those are on the city side. We have lost
1,000 since 2012.
OUR CULTURAL HISTORY: Cherokee
Nation. The Turley Community and Its School District until mid 1930s stretched
to Mohawk Blvd. Post WW Two expansion of residential areas, primarily white
working class aerospace and oil industries. Segregated Area until late Sixties
and Integration of McLain, cutting offerings, white flight of businesses and
professions and residences and churches and civic groups 1967 to 1977. By
mid-1980s, declining population, rising poverty rates, abandoned houses,
environmental decline.
OUR
RESPONSES:
In 2007, four years after beginning, we
turned our CHURCH INSIDE OUT and focused organization on community concerns and
connections and opened up a community center with a computer center, library,
clothing room, meeting space and soon housed an OU Health Clinic and began
working with OU Graduate Social Work program on community forums and projects.
Called it A THIRD PLACE as part of the global third places or third spaces
movement of creating free public spaces to grow community sense of place and
connections where people could meet and work with people who are different from
them to make a difference around them, especially for us “third places” in
places of poverty and neglect.
In
2009 we
formed A Third Place Community Foundation as a non-faith-based non-profit, and
began demonstration community garden on donated church land. In 2010 we raised
funds aided by a project by the OU Graduate Design Studio, to buy the block of
abandoned neglected burned out properties and illegal dump site across from
where our demonstration garden was located, and with federal stimulus funds we
began clearing it; that year we also bought a large abandoned church building
to move the community center into for expansion. In 2011 as the OU health
clinic closed with us, we began working with OU Graduate Social Work intern and
classes to develop a lay health worker plan that would use our residents
mentoring our residents who go to the emergency room the most, and the “medical
mentors” would be trained by OU community medicine residents but funding never
came to initiate the program. We shifted to become a “Social Determinants of
Health Clinic”
In
2011 in our
new space in the old vandalized church building we expanded our programs for
the community center meeting space, free bookstore, computer center, art room,
clothing and more room, and expanded our food pantry and store. We hold
community festivals in both the Center and at the GardenPark and Orchard.
In
2011 we won
an online contest for the community orchard; and we received a federal home
loan bank grant for our park site preparation. For the past five years we have
been living and growing in and adding to both of our properties, as well as
working on blighted areas in the community.
We are
more than our statistics. We have strengths and spirit, and beautiful land, and
people helping people in many ways. But, also….
1. LIFE EXPECTANCY GAP DRIVES OUR MISSION.
74130 dies 14 years sooner than 74133. 74126
10.7 years sooner. We and others are making a difference; when we began our
missional transformation in 2007, the gap for the 74126 was 13.8 years. Life
expectancy studies reveal 10 percent comes from clinical treatment (we have
worst health care access rates), 20 percent comes from genetics; that leaves 70
percent of the impact to come from lifestyle choices (50 percent) and
environmental factors (20 percent) much of which contributes to the capacity to
make good lifestyle choices of eating healthy and exercising, staying off
addictive substances: wild dogs, lack of sidewalks and streetlights, neglected
properties, illegal dumping, healthy food desert, poor transportation, crime,
poverty stresses, too poor for health insurance, etc.)
Unemployment numbers are
double the state average. WE MOVED FROM HOSTING HEALTH CLINIC TO BECOMING A
SOCIAL DETERMINANTS OF HEALTH CENTER.
2. FOOD & WATER INSECURITY Affects
Abilities for Healthy Responses: 2009
OU and Third Place Foundation nutrition study: 60 percent can’t afford healthy
food; 55 percent worry about amount of food they have; 6
percent use spoiled food; 29 percent adults skip meals. 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. 29 percent have no affordable
source of food in community, 63 percent know about a food pantry, 56 percent
rate the food quality in our area as fair or poor, 59 percent indicate food in
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 say they should weigh less, 47 percent smoke or use
other tobacco.
3. 2013
OU and Third Place Foundation CHOICES study just at our Food Store community:
52.6 percent high food insecurity; 42.1 percent very high food insecurity,
experiencing hunger symptoms when surveyed; 68.4 percent of households have at
least one member with nutrition-related chronic disease; 53 percent depression;
47 percent anxiety; 53 percent high blood pressure; 32 percent high
cholesterol; 47 percent obese and 21 percent overweight. Our demographic at food store: 68 percent
women, 42 percent black, 36 percent white, 63 percent under $10,000 annual
household income; 5 percent employed, 47.4 percent disabled, 42 percent less
than high school education and 16 percent have a high school degree. High
number without water in home, often electric, often without adequate housing.
4. We connect with and serve and serve with some
1000 of our neighbors monthly through our food store, gardens, community center
and art day events, and various local justice coalitions (advisory boards for
health dept, park, neighborhood partners, pre-release center, schools) of the
11,500 in our primary service area. Our population has declined by 1000 in the
past four years which means the needs have increased as more has closed. (governmental
response is driven by numbers and not by need; story of post office and schools
closed and planned bus service). DOWNSTREAM
IS UPSTREAM.
5. VOTING
LEADS TO CIVIC HEALTH; CIVIC CONNECTION LEADS TO PHYSICAL HEALTH. Lowest voting
turnout in the metropolitan area. My precinct 20 percent turnout average;
precinct at All Souls est 50 percent. Highest percentages of people of color in
precinct lowest turnout areas. Disparities of numbers of precincts and access
to polls and to candidates and officials. 7 precincts in all four zip codes
covering all or part of our area compared to 8 in the 74114 and 15 in 74133.
Working with UCO and LWV and others on statewide analysis and response.
NEXT
MAJOR STEPS
for the
GardenPark and Orchard: finish the greenhouse, add aquaponics and kitchen;
construct the 2100 sq ft hoop house; expand the Children’s Garden; construct a stage,
a deck, and a shade area, begin community outdoor art and music, Create
community engagement areas, service learning outdoor classrooms, Launch the
annual Grow Pots program to help families at the food store to grow their own
food at home. Help people start smaller gardens on abandoned lots in their
neighborhoods. Become a site for education and entrepreneurs. Partnering with
OU Graduate Design Studio again on plans.
for the
Community Center: Finish the Community Room in the south building for the free
bookstore, computer area, classroom, kitchen, meeting space, laundry; move and
expand the art rooms and studio and create a gallery in the Central Building;
expand the food store with a third room for shopping and added storage; Finish
the outside Permaculture Flood Management Project, and outdoor deck and gardens
and benches and small hoop house. Reconstruct the basement into permanent
and temporary residences.
For the
Wider Community: Through expanding retreats, Help others begin place-based,
relational renewal initiatives in other parts of the area, and elsewhere, that
focus on “relocation to abandoned places (teaming with remainers, returners,
relocaters), reconciliation through repentance and reparation, and
redistribution of goods and the common good.”
A Note about the Image Accompanying this Post: In the summer, 2016 we hosted an intern, Leidy Rogers, from the College of Social Justice; she took as her project making community art and placing it in the community in places of high visibility and high blight, to show the world that beauty resides in our community even in its bleakest spots. This was one of those.
