One. Good morning, good morning, good morning, and welcome, welcome,
welcome, he said, time now for our community connection right here on
K one, the one that you trust. And we're talking to our friends
here from Samaritan Counseling and Growth Center and Larry Thrashes here are the board president.
You brought friends, because well you always come in here with friends,
don't you. Absolutely, I can't do it by myself. So what are
you going on, Lawrence? Well, we got an awful lot, you
know. One of the things that I'd like to do this morning is to
introduce our new executive director. We stole him from Ray of Hope Advocacy Center
and his name is Ben Ames, and he's been with us a little over
two months, and we kind of had him on a ninety day probation pier,
but we let that go real early because he's doing a fabulous job or
so we're excited to have him. Well, men, welcome aboard. Yeah,
thank you. Well you also got some friends out here with Keith Sheffield.
Keith, you've been around the man a little bit over there, haven't
you. Yeah. I started my relationship to Samaritan in nineteen ninety five yo
yo. And still hanging around having a good time. That I am man.
You know, when you believe in something, it's hard to take yourself
away from that incident. That's exactly true, my goodness. As Yeah,
I served with you as the executive director from two thousand and five to twenty
seventeen. H my goodness, and still put it in where needed. Huh.
Yeah, I'm do training and I'm on the board of directors. Very
good. Then letting grass grow under his fee does absolutely not. We're tickled
to death to have him and he's in the position and the experience that he
board real blessing, absolutely so, Ben, was it like you did?
They show you around you don't get lost around the opposite yet I haven't gotten
lost just quite yet. Well that's good, Yeah I have. I've been
truly, truly blessed by many in many different ways, but more so just
through having fantastic mentors with Keith Sharing and then of course Kristen was with Kristen
Kurd was the interim executive director for about eighteen eighteen twenty months. Yeah,
and she did a fantastic job keeping things going and just keeping the program running.
And I know she was ready to edit and take step back and get
back into her and to her her fitness routine and just being mom. But
you know the amount of support that I've had from within the organization and then
also from within the nonprofit community and self here and borble Spelle, No,
this is a wonderful opportunity, not only for you three gentlemen, because you
get to work at a great place that helps a lot of people, but
it's also a wonderful opportunity for people to work with great professionals to get the
help that they need and sometimes don't even realize that they need. Precisely true
or sisely true. Smaritan was originated in this community in nineteen seventy fourth.
So we're coming up on our fiftieth anniversary and we serve nine hundred, close
to four thousand hours of sessions every year. So yeah, we hope we
set the goal for four eight hundred this year. And our goal is to
be of service to the community. Our mission is is to provide affordable,
quality counseling, regardless of ability to pay. And so our goal is to
reach out and provide quality services to this community. And then the other part
of the equation is we raise a little bit of money in order to offset
those costs, and what cards are you holding their pal Well The Iconic Samaritan
Sports Spectacular August twenty fourth this year at the Hilton Garden End. It's gonna
be We've already got a speaker lined up and so we're really excited again.
We sell out every year. We have some great sponsors that have provided money
for us for several years that just continue to sponsor. We're always looking for
new sponsors. It's a great opportunity to get your name out. It's a
casual where your sports attire. It's a lot different than some of the other
events in town. And that's one of our differentiators is that you know,
you can wear shorts, you can wear jeans, you can wear t shirts,
whatever it is that makes you comfortable, because when we watch you,
when you're reaching for your wallet, that there's no restrictions. Yeah, you've
got to become absolutely watch him. I'm telling you now, you know,
Ben, this is going to be just a cool opportunity for you to walk
into something like this and be a part of this great story. This coincides
with a lot of other work that you've done in the past by making sure
that resources are available to people. You kind of got big history of that.
Yeah, I am this is I believe year twenty and the nonprofit feel
for myself, you're not old enough to be around twenty years anywhere. It
was a surprise to me as well whenever I realized that. But yeah,
just being able to have those connections and just being able to connect people to
the different resources within our communities. You know, Bartlesville is a great community.
We are have a plethora of services and opportunities available for individuals regardless of
where they're at, and they're walk with life and I want to get to
Keith here. Keith. You know, one of the things that was so
cool about Samaritan it was during COVID you guys did some cutting edge things.
You were not going to let people to be grasping for help and not being
able to connect with them. You guys did the tele health thing long before
a lot of others did, and in fact a lot quicker than most people
around the country did. Our goal was not to buy experience an interruption of
services, and plus we really saw that during that period of time there were
real stresses on mental health and so it was more critical that we be available
maybe than any other time. So the steps were taken to make sure we
were available. What kind of help do we offer, you know, the
whole gamut, or is there some specialties that do we kind of rise the
service. What we would say is that Marton's a general practice, okay,
and you know, we we've had up to six therapists that work on staff,
both licensed, all licensed, both as clinical social workers and licensed professionals.
We have a couple of individuals with specialties. We provide neural linguistics.
Plus we also have dance therapy, movement therapy with at least of roles.
So in addition to general talk therapy and cognitive behavioral, we branched out to
do other things with kids. We provide service support services to other agencies.
We tried to collaborate to make sure that we're involved with and support other nonprofits
as well. You know, getting help this way is it's been a long
time coming for folks. I remember growing up in the nineteen sixties that was
something that you didn't I'm up in conversation and you know sometimes you had a
friend that would miss a class part of school and they just said, well,
you know, I had to go talk to somebody. And then you
know, later in life we realized that, you know, they were actually
getting counseling. And the first thing I asked, was it help? He
said, yeah, I'm here, and it's like, oh okay. So
why was it such a big deal? He said, you know the folks,
And I guess it's been kind of a thing in America where this was
something that was not really talked about. Now it's very much in the open.
People openly discussed the fact that sometimes you need an ear, you need
a professional, you need someone to be a sounding board. May is mental
health awareness is to make us aware that these services are there, and one
doesn't need to be embarrassed. No, you just got to be bold enough
to take that step right. You know. A long time ago, my
mentor said, if you have one person to talk to, you make it.
And I think that's true. Wow, And I think the stigma that
you mentioned is disappearing. People are understanding that they need help and it's not
something to be embarrassed about. So I think I think that has helped a
lot for our general mental help for our community. But as Keith mentioned,
we partner with a lot of local agencies like Hopestone is a great example.
You know, Hopstone, everything they do is free, all of their services,
so it's easy for us to partner with them and for them with us
to send those cancer patients to cancer families that need some support. Boy don't
they. And this is this is your strong suit man. It makes you
making sure that all the lanes are open, all all the thoroughfares of exchanging
of ideas and services happen. Absolutely. You know. It's about building this
collaborative relationships and we're grateful for the ones that we have. We're always looking
for new ones. The one of the things that the gentlemen didn't really talk
about is we are one of the larger EAP providers for communities. Here are
our companies here and here in Barbosville EAPs employee assistance programs. So if a
person is having some difficulties in that company offers that they can then send a
referral directly to us and we will make make a time and space for that
individual to come in and be seen. We work with Conical, Phillips,
Phillips sixty six, a couple of other agencies, and I'm also working on
working on kind of building off of that and working with some of our nonprofits
to be able to offer that as well. Well. Yeah, because some
of the folks in the nonprofits, they get a lot of sleepless nights,
a lot of endless weekends, and you know it'll add up and you need
somebody, Like you said, it's got one person, you're gonna go.
You gotta be okay, Larry, you've been associated with for how many years
now? Well, I'm on about sixth year being on the board. My
wife was on the board before I was for six years, so we kind
of have a family addition. You've been around about ten to twelve years,
so it's been it's been good. You know. One of the things that
Ben had mentioned was the value that Kristen Kurt has brought to our organization,
oh the last couple of years. The things that she has done, stepped
in when things needed running, still running the American Counseling and Growth Center Sports
Spectacular, So she has been instrumental in kind of keeping this thing during our
our search for the right executive director. So he was right down the street
the whole time, just right down the street. Sorry about that, man,
I didn't mean to make it this is the most uncomfortable time I've ever
had here. But it's glad to have all three of you guys here and
talking about the I think everybody should talk about United Way. We do.
Let's do it. Yes, one of the things, we're a Night Way
agency and therefore they're one of our primary supporters both financially through the community.
Plus their leadership is supportive, so we need to make sure people are aware
of the United Way is an important part of our support fly. Every dollar
that is given to the United Way is turned right back around and given right
back to nonprofits and those partner agencies and other organizations within the community that just
ask for our do an application. There's grand dollars available through the United Way
for pretty much any organization, right. That's good to know. We highly
encourage folks to, you know, if you want to give, you know,
yes, we would love to love for you to give directly to us,
but also give give to the United Way because they are they're one of
the largest supporters in our community. So, Ben, where can we I
need your brand new office? All right? Well, we are located at
two forty five Southeast Madison here in Bartlesville, and we have appointments that start
from nine o'clock and run until late in the evening. In fact, Kevin
was there until about eight o'clock last night. So our telephone nuber is nine
one eight three three six fourteen sixty three and they can find us on the
web at Samaritan Bartlesville dot org. Very good and reminder folks that they don't
have any down trees out there, so if you're thinking about making your visit
today or calling the head, don't worry. You won't be obstructed. Everything's
in one piece. Absolutely made the walk through this morning, didn't you.
We definitely did it was it was a wild hair this morning, just making
sure we were good. Oh my goodness sakes. And again when it was
the Sports protecting or coming up twenty four Hilton Garden and are they much available
there? Tickets are not available yet. They'll be available probably next month.
And yeah, we're still looking for additional sponsors or people to buy complete tables.
Just be prepared, guys. You want to see things get interesting,
Wait till there's only three tickets left. Huh, okay okay, and then
and the boom they're gone. All we have to do is say we've got
three. Oh well, no, no more. They're gone, you know.
So that's a quick ticket. Thanks guys for being with us today.
Thanks's Plumbing now serving Coffeeville and