CHICKASHA — Once a month a group of municipal and social service representatives known collectively as the Community Alliance gather in a room at the Chamber of Commerce to discuss neighbors in need of food, shelter, rental assistance, and other essentials.
Almost 30 people who assembled May 24 included members of The Salvation Army of Grady and Caddo counties, Chickasha Community Theatre, Resurrection House/Life Skills Institute, Veterans of Foreign Wars, Michigan Avenue Baptist Church/Clothing Closet, Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust, Life Choices, the City of Chickasha, SafeCare, Grady County Health Department, Heidi Helping The Homeless, Chickasha Public Schools, Chickasha Public Library, Earthly Dwellings, Chickasha Chamber/Economic Development Council, Chickasha Soup Kitchen, Chickasha Bullock Memorial Center, and Southwest Continuum of Care.
Retired schoolteacher Mary Parrish outlined services provided by the Oklahoma Home and Community Education of Grady County.
The OHCE was founded 112 years ago as the Oklahoma Home Demonstration Council and has since undergone three “rebrandings,” she related.
Its purpose is to:
• Strengthen the family unit.
• Develop leadership skills.
• Encourage self-improvement.
• Meet other individuals with similar interests.
• Promote intercultural understanding; and
• Serve the community.
Issues on which the OHCE focuses, she said, include health and wellness, literacy, environmental matters, leadership development, parenting/child abuse, substance abuse, family violence, and youth development.
OHCE projects and activities include providing scholarships for seniors, writing contests, a fashion show, a cultural arts show, Santa’s Workshop, the county fair, helping children in crisis, and sponsoring educational programs. “We’re really all about education,” Parrish said.
During the first week in May “we went to hospitals and fire departments to say ‘thank you’ to our first responders,” Parrish said. Similarly, the Caddo County OHCE presented food baskets to their police departments, in appreciation of their public service, she said.
A broad range of topics are covered in monthly training sessions, she indicated. Topics this year include Hershey and the Chocolate Factory, risk of Type 2 diabetes and aging, breadmaking, propagation of shrubs, rag wreaths craft, canning from the perspective of a judge at a fair, preventing muscle loss from aging, jarcuterie, and cybersecurity.
Statewide the OHCE has more than 300 groups consisting of approximately 2,700 members and operates under the “umbrella” of the Oklahoma State University Extension Service. Membership is open to everyone.
Grady County has six OHCE groups that meet once a month, Parrish said. One OHCE group was established 109 years ago, another is 107 years old, the “Friend” group is 105 years old, the “Ninnekah” group was founded 93 years ago, and the “Sparrow” group in Tuttle is a mere infant, launched on Feb. 7.
‘Soup kitchen,’ food pantry, meals for kids
Alliance members also discussed a community “soup kitchen” which is staffed by volunteers who serve nutritious meals five days a week, Monday through Friday, at a site on the north side of Chickasha. The facility typically serves about 190 people but on May 23 attendance jumped to 236, the alliance was told.
In a related matter, the Salvation Army operates a food pantry for the needy, and starting June 6 Chickasha’s YMCA, The Salvation Army, and the public school system will provide meals – breakfast and lunch – for school children.
“Requests for food have doubled, and requests for assistance paying utility bills have doubled,” said Lt. Crystal McFarland of the Salvation Army. Congress and the U.S. Department of Agriculture boosted funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as the Food Stamp Program) during the COVID-19 pandemic, but that ended in March, she lamented.
Consequently, “We saw more people in the first two weeks of May than we saw during the same period in April,” McFarland said.
Homelessness issue
Also present for the May 24 Community Alliance meeting was a representative of the Southwest Continuum of Care. Each Continuum includes action steps to end homelessness through prevention and establishment of stable and secure housing.
Head counts conducted last October and again this January found approximately 90 homeless individuals in Chickasha, McFarland said. One of them has experienced a revolving door of arrests, jail, local courts and mental health facilities for the last six years, records reflect.
“The majority of the issues” Chickasha experiences from homelessness “are mental health,” Mayor Chris Mosley said in April. “And Chickasha is no different than anyplace else: We just don’t have the finances nor the programs to handle it.”
“We don’t have a lot of mental health services or facilities,” echoed McFarland. “Because, as you know, there are different degrees of people who need help. We’re trying to raise awareness in this county about this problem.”
In a related matter, the Executive Order that created the Governor’s Interagency Council on Homelessness was not renewed in April by Governor Kevin Stitt, so the council was dissolved.
Library computers for job searches, reading, education
Reference Librarian Michelle Skinner told the alliance that the Chickasha Public Library has six public-access computers, at least one of which can be used for job searches; a variety of educational courses are available online; and a summer reading program for individuals of all ages will be held throughout June and July.
“Our goal is to get everyone together in the same room and identify what role each group plays here and how we can all work together,” Jim Cowan, director of the Chickasha Economic Development Council, said in March 2022 at the founding of the Community Alliance.
“We want to invite all organizations that work with people dealing with poverty and try to see how we can assist one another. Helping people who want to help themselves but need assistance is at the core of the Community Alliance mission.”