Join us in celebrating & giving back as heartland matches all donations up to $25,000!
Take a look below at moments from the past year that we are grateful for & that are possible through your prayers, your engagement & your generosity! We couldn’t do this without each of you!
Our Next Generation Led The Way In Sustainable Change! As if charting the course on cultivating a 5-Acre Urban Farm wasn't enough, they went "seed to shelf" & oversaw the opening of a community-owned grocery store!
In a display of SUPERNATURAL unity, hundreds of donors gave to make The Market at Eastpoint possible, more than ONE-THIRD of them from our community. Homeland Grocery Stores, Numerous Foundations, Churches, Non-Profits, Corporations, and Individuals all came together to pull off an incredible grocery store & community gathering place!
Community-Owned & Community Led Grocery Store means more than food access! Through partnerships like OKDHS, Homeless Alliance, Lynn Institute & Oak Street Health we are also able to provide drop-in services to assist with immediate food stamp activation, Medicaid eligibility & enrollment, housing & homeless services! It's a grocery store owned by the community, ran by the community that is truly leading the way in being FOR the community!
Even cooler still, we were able to become the first Urban Market to accept Double Up Bucks & create a contract for local growers to sell direct through the Market at Eastpoint & Homeland Grocery Stores! For ever $1 spent on ANY food stamp purchase, families get a free $1 to spend on fresh produce! We are ending the food swamp & seeing fresh not only accessible but we are doing MORE THAN 4x the national average in category sales for produce!
Student-led change has a ripple effect in the community. These interns won 3 different awards on the city & state-level for their incredible work this past year and a half to end their own food desert community! That's community-led change!
Eastside Eatery & The Market at Eastpoint are both employment arms of RestoreOKC & together employ more than 40 neighbors, several of whom were not only unemployed, but lacked stable housing when they applied. Not only are they now on track with career goals, but they are in stable housing where we can work with them toward homeownership & multi-generational equity!
Eastside Eatery serves coffee, breakfast & lunch from 9-2:00pm, everyday but Sunday & will begin prepared meals soon that can be purchased with Food Stamps making healthy, prepared meals feasible for families!
Mama W is our Community Advisory Board President! Her home was nearly sold out from under her earlier this year, but partners stepped in & helped us purchase it so she could remain! This is one of 4 homes we now own for the ability to retain equity in the community. We make repairs & work with bank partners to get these owned by neighbors who are most at-risk in this housing market!
Also, did we mention that Mama W brings joy to EVERYONE & EVERYTHING that happens here at RestoreOKC & we are proud to declare that by God's grace she is well after a scare with some serious medical complications this year! Praise the Lord with us, we cannot do what we do without our community leaders!
Speaking of Restore Community, Director Anthony Taylor joins the RestoreOKC team to help lead our community board, parent advisory committees, and take point in some community-led initiatives that we are very excited about!
Community-Led Change Continues! The former Polk Elementary School at NE 38th & Prospect became ours in partnership with Oklahoma City Public Schools at the end of 2020 & this year we will open the South Building on the campus with partner Boys & Girls Club! We are so excited to have them as our "anchor partner" in what will become a Family Resource Campus with partners like Homeless Alliance, Justice & Diversion Hub, Public Strategies, Black-Led Mental Health & more represented in this "hub." Bank of America led the investment on the South Building with a $250,000 grant!
One Class of our Worklife GRADUATES! These ladies are incredible, they fight daily for themselves & one another. They set ambitious goals and grew one Restore Jobs company by more than 400% in a single-year!
Many of our Worklife graduates go on to become trained as Peer Recovery Support Specialists & will serve at the Family Resource Campus as "navigators." Navigators are the first point of contact with any family, and can listen to help families not only determine which resources would help & where to start, but also walk with them through the whole process to make sure they know they're neighbors, not case numbers!
The "Homes" arm of RestoreOKC exists to both to meet the home repair, handicap accessibility, & weatherization needs of seniors in our community and to help us rehabilitate abandoned homes in our community for home ownership. The home pictured is being rehabbed for homeownership including all new systems, windows & roof so it is ready to safely house a family for the long-haul & help them build multi-generational equity!
Many seniors in our community have a historical title issue related to how home loans were originated after the Fair Housing Act of 1968 (when banks were first forced to loan to African-American homeowners). Others cannot afford to take their homes through a probate process. The result is homeowners who cannot get services from anyone who takes State or Federal funding. Our partners like Rebuilding Together, the City of Oklahoma City, the City Citations Department call us when that happens as we are able to meet those needs without the red tape!
Ms. W's roof here was one such "casualty" due to a title issue. Because of this, her roof had been leaking for years often compounding the issue to internal damage, mold, cracking drywall, foundation problems & more. This year our Homes team at RestoreOKC was not only able to replace her roof, but make the additional repairs as well as replace 4 more senior roofs & make more than $400,000 of free repairs to seniors throughout our community.
Many of these repairs are completed on our 2nd Saturday "Workday" mornings! More than 1,000 volunteers served together on "Workdays" throughout 2021 providing more than $350,000 in volunteer labor! Hundreds of our volunteers have been and continue to be neighbors! We love the opportunity to use this time to foster intentional conversation around reconciliation & help us be more compassionate, educated co-reconcilers!
Partners like the Innovation District have sponsored two Workday mornings this year, bringing donuts & lunch to share after a morning of working together in our community. We love our Workday partnerships & have been lucky to have Life.Church Britton & Broadway, Allegiance Credit Union, Heartland, Church of the Servant, King's Cross, Redemption Edmond, and others donate material costs or food for these gatherings together!
Our Schools team mastered the art of drive-thru events of every kind in 2020 which has come in handy again this year as, while students are back, volunteers are still not allowed in the building! We started the year by spoiling teachers with their dream lists to remind them they're not alone as they re-enter their classes & have weekly "teacher spoiling days" where we can encourage them by helping how we can!
Our HOPE Center began in partnership with Boys & Girls Club in 2020 & we were able to run it all summer bringing in partners for enrichment activities & lessons and transitioned to after-school programming in the fall. This will move to its permanent home at the Family Resource Center in early 2022!
Early 2021 snow days helped us to launch into the new year determined to make the best of what had been an especially challenging year for our Restore Schools arm.
RestoreOKC believes that all people have dignity and something to offer to the community. This translates into programs that work holistically & are based on an honest exchange where each recipient’s contribution is valued and needed.
Together, this year, we have transformed abandoned houses into beautiful homes, opened a grocery store in a former food desert, and experienced the true joy of belonging to a community that resiliently weathers life’s storms and joyfully celebrates its blessings.
We are humbled & grateful. Even the chickens.
Thank you.
We cannot even come close to capturing the full picture of the incredible fruit we have seen over the past year. We are thankful to neighbors, donors, partners, & advocates. We could not do this without each and every one of you.