Speaker 1: Good morning, good morning, good morning. Welcome, welcome, welcome.
Speaker 2: It's time now for our community connection right here on
Speaker 2: K one. The one you trust, not a stranger. Mikes
Speaker 2: Orenson's her with us and he is with the Amayah
Speaker 2: House Community Development and boy a little bit of a
Speaker 2: name change. Their head looked twice. So what's going on, Mike.
Speaker 3: Oh, good morning. Yeah, we're well. We continue to just
Speaker 3: do what we do.
Speaker 4: We're helping people coming out of addiction, out of jail,
Speaker 4: out of homelessness, and we're we get deeply involved kind
Speaker 4: of creating a holistic program for all the stuff people
Speaker 4: need to transition into independent living. So that's kind of
Speaker 4: our daily work that's always going on. But this week
Speaker 4: we're gearing up because we have our our annual fundraiser
Speaker 4: where we do a big rummage sale and so this
Speaker 4: is this is our second year of doing the big
Speaker 4: rummied sale outside the Old Emerald in Hotel.
Speaker 1: Okay, right here on seventy five.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's on seventy five, just north of Frank Phillips.
Speaker 4: So if you're right next to gansmol and all that
Speaker 4: right over there, you'll see a big sign coming up.
Speaker 3: This weekend. We've been getting donations here.
Speaker 4: For the last few weeks, people have been bringing us
Speaker 4: a lot of stuff that they're ready to get rid of,
Speaker 4: and we get to stand out there and meet people
Speaker 4: and sell it off, and this helps raise money for
Speaker 4: all the practical things we do with everybody every day.
Speaker 1: You're going to do this both Friday and Saturday.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Friday and Saturday, all day, will be out there
Speaker 4: setting up early.
Speaker 3: We say nine to five.
Speaker 4: We'll be out there getting it all set up, ready
Speaker 4: to go, and we'll be ready to sell at nine
Speaker 4: both days all day. We'll probably close down at five,
Speaker 4: but if people are still buying, we may stay still
Speaker 4: stay out there.
Speaker 1: And you got food vendors out there too, so.
Speaker 3: We will have food on Saturday.
Speaker 4: I think we're going to have some I think we're
Speaker 4: going to have some breakfast, some donuts and things in
Speaker 4: the morning.
Speaker 3: On Friday.
Speaker 4: Our guys going to be coming doing hamburgers and hot
Speaker 4: dogs on Saturday lunchtime, so we'll be ready.
Speaker 3: We'll feed you to come out and buy.
Speaker 4: Her and that all that kind of supports the proceeds
Speaker 4: for what we need to do now.
Speaker 2: And dian May, you're talking about people coming in off
Speaker 2: addiction out of incarceration and this is not an easy job.
Speaker 2: This is this is not for the timid, and you're
Speaker 2: teaching them life skills. You guys actually did a little
Speaker 2: did a little figuring here, how well is this working?
Speaker 4: Yeah, we had to we're you know, with different things
Speaker 4: that we're applying for grants and different things that we're doing.
Speaker 3: We've had to do some research to be able to
Speaker 3: give numbers.
Speaker 4: And so we went back and researched, and especially the
Speaker 4: last three plus years since we really kept numbers, since
Speaker 4: we opened our Women at Children's House, we started getting
Speaker 4: numbers and started tracking down where are all these people now?
Speaker 4: How are they doing a lot of people that came
Speaker 4: through our program, and we found that about seventy three
Speaker 4: percent of the people who had come through our program
Speaker 4: over those three years, whether they graduated or not, are
Speaker 4: living stable life. If they're now, they've not relapsed, so
Speaker 4: they're still clean, they're not not gone back to jail,
Speaker 4: they're living in safe housing, and they also are working.
Speaker 4: So those those are kind of our four categories that
Speaker 4: we measured. And so to have a seventy some percent
Speaker 4: success rate when you're talking about dealing with people coming
Speaker 4: out of addiction is astounding to us.
Speaker 3: I was, I was amazed by that number.
Speaker 1: You should be, because that's off the charte.
Speaker 4: Yeah, on average, somebody who goes to rehab, they'll say
Speaker 4: they go to rehab seven times on average before they
Speaker 4: stay clean. So it's tricky work. But I found like
Speaker 4: what we're doing, we're not the rehab per se. What
Speaker 4: we're catching people coming out on the other side of that.
Speaker 4: They've usually gone to rehab.
Speaker 1: First, helping them transition.
Speaker 3: But we're helping them with all the other stuff.
Speaker 4: That's because they come out of rehab, you know someone's
Speaker 4: done it, even when they had a really great experience
Speaker 4: in me have they come out with a lot of
Speaker 4: tools for their addiction, but they still don't have a
Speaker 4: driver's license. They don't have a job, or a place
Speaker 4: to stay or any of these other things, right, so
Speaker 4: they don't in addition to mental health and recovery things
Speaker 4: that they have to work on, they may have a
Speaker 4: lot of trauma or different things they need to deal with.
Speaker 4: That's part of my job because I'm the licensed counselor,
Speaker 4: so I help with some of the deeper mental health
Speaker 4: issues that people work on. But there's all kinds of
Speaker 4: stuff that people need help with there, and if you
Speaker 4: can help them stabilize the rest of their life, that
Speaker 4: makes it much easier on them to maintain their sobriety
Speaker 4: and to maintain these because now they've got a job,
Speaker 4: they got something to live for. When they're desperate and
Speaker 4: they don't have a place to go, a place to stay,
Speaker 4: they don't have a job any money, they're going to
Speaker 4: go back to the people that they know, right, Like,
Speaker 4: they're going to go back to the easy, easy path
Speaker 4: is to go back to somebody who will give you
Speaker 4: a place to stay.
Speaker 3: But that person's probably not good.
Speaker 4: So we found the amazing success, right, We've seen from
Speaker 4: people who who will.
Speaker 3: Get in and do the work of the program.
Speaker 4: You know, you have to want to do some work
Speaker 4: because they're in classes and groups, they're working for us,
Speaker 4: they're doing all kinds of stuff. So it's like if
Speaker 4: they're willing to say yes, I just show me what
Speaker 4: to do, help me out. Those people, we've seen them
Speaker 4: do amazing things. We shared a and we shared a story.
Speaker 4: People find our facebook page. I shared a or on
Speaker 4: our website. They we shared a testimonial just a couple
Speaker 4: of weeks ago from one of our ladies' this just
Speaker 4: graduated our program. That just I mean, it makes me
Speaker 4: cry every time I watch it.
Speaker 3: She blows my mind.
Speaker 4: Melissa, her story is outstanding because she was homeless on
Speaker 4: the street in addiction, and she talked about just reaching
Speaker 4: a point where she was she was offered a place
Speaker 4: to stay because she didn't have anywhere else to go.
Speaker 4: She was down in Tulsa and she said, this friend
Speaker 4: offered her a place to stay, and she realized it
Speaker 4: was this lady's tint under a bridge, and she was
Speaker 4: like she kind of at that moment, it was nice
Speaker 4: this person offered her a place to go, but she said,
Speaker 4: God has more for me than this, right and that
Speaker 4: was part of her decision to go to rehab and
Speaker 4: to see her now. She just moved into one of
Speaker 4: the cottages on Sixth Street. She just graduated our program.
Speaker 4: She works for us leading other people, and I'm like you, you
Speaker 4: wouldn't recognize the person she is now from where she
Speaker 4: came from. So to hear people that have been through
Speaker 4: just horrible abuse backgrounds and all kinds of terrible stories
Speaker 4: that to see them thriving in life, Man, it'll blow
Speaker 4: your mind what these people do folks.
Speaker 2: You can help by by helping a d and by
Speaker 2: community development to do right by people by doing right
Speaker 2: by them. You come to the big sale coming up
Speaker 2: out there at the Old Emerald Inn and that will
Speaker 2: be on Friday and Saturday right there at the Old
Speaker 2: Emerald Inn Hotel on seventy five just Dorthan Frank Phillips Boulevard.
Speaker 2: Bring your dollars, bring your sins, but also bring your
Speaker 2: heart and your compassion.
Speaker 3: Absolutely come talk to us.
Speaker 4: And we got a lot of I mean, we've got furniture, electronics,
Speaker 4: we've got you know, exercise equipment, all kinds of stuff
Speaker 4: that people have donated. There's a lot of big stuff
Speaker 4: out there, and some of it's really nice. I'm like,
Speaker 4: people brought some pretty new stuff.
Speaker 3: So you'll get a good deal. And there's a lot
Speaker 3: of good stuff going to be out there, so it'll
Speaker 3: be fun.
Speaker 4: But come talk to us too. We would love to
Speaker 4: get to know people who are interested.
Speaker 3: In supporting or being a part of what we're doing. Uh.
Speaker 4: This is we like, you know, informing people or telling stories,
Speaker 4: introducing them.
Speaker 3: All our people are going to be out there working.
Speaker 4: We'll have all our our participants are going to be
Speaker 4: out there, you know, contributing and helping us restock stuff
Speaker 4: and doing all that, so they'll be out there too.
Speaker 4: We love telling stories and teaching people about what we do,
Speaker 4: so we would love to have some visitors.
Speaker 1: Well, that's going to be great.
Speaker 2: They can see the success written on the faces of
Speaker 2: the people who will be there, and that that's very telling.
Speaker 2: And you know that you're investing not only in a
Speaker 2: human being, which you are, you're investing in a lot
Speaker 2: of human beings, but you're also investing in our community.
Speaker 2: Shortly before the program, Mike and I were talking about
Speaker 2: different things related to Nea Maya, and you were telling
Speaker 2: me the cost of incarceration. I had no idea it
Speaker 2: was that expensive.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it costs the city over twenty thousand dollars a
Speaker 4: year to hold somebody in jail, and there's lots of
Speaker 4: other emergency services costs things like that. The estimate is
Speaker 4: that for one person who's who's caught up in addiction
Speaker 4: and some of these things, it would cost fifty to
Speaker 4: one hundred thousand dollars a year for the city per person.
Speaker 4: It's a lot of money we spend on someone who's
Speaker 4: stuck in those things. And so when we help one
Speaker 4: person come out of that, it's saving money too, even
Speaker 4: if you're even if you're you know, we do it
Speaker 4: for the people, but when you look at that, you're like, wow,
Speaker 4: it's saving a lot of.
Speaker 3: Tax dollars as well.
Speaker 4: When we get somebody who's no longer using up emergency services,
Speaker 4: not going in now the er or they're not going
Speaker 4: to jail. And then there's all kinds of administrative costs
Speaker 4: to that too. When you're paying the DA, you're paying
Speaker 4: all these different things for court costs and judges and
Speaker 4: all that. For people going through this stuff, there's a
Speaker 4: lot of costs to the city and to go, yeah,
Speaker 4: when you you lift one person out of there, like,
Speaker 4: it's saving us a lot of money, it's much cheaper
Speaker 4: for somebody who's now contributing Now they're working, they're paying taxes, and.
Speaker 3: They're paying rent.
Speaker 4: Then they're you know, they're contributing something to the community
Speaker 4: now too.
Speaker 3: In addition to just the I.
Speaker 4: Mean, you can't not be mood like you watch some
Speaker 4: of these stories, like you can't nott be mood by.
Speaker 3: The people side of it. But it's also a practical,
Speaker 3: real good too.
Speaker 2: And let's face it, these folks if they've gone through
Speaker 2: the rehab, they don't want to go into incarceration.
Speaker 1: They've been some of them have been there already.
Speaker 2: Yes, although hate we've got nice facilities, nobody really wants
Speaker 2: to Nobody really wants to be there.
Speaker 1: They don't know.
Speaker 4: And that's why we've got some really good prayerms like
Speaker 4: we work closely with, like Mental Health Court and Drug
Speaker 4: Court that can divert people.
Speaker 3: So they don't have to go to jail.
Speaker 4: And that's when we can take those people and we can,
Speaker 4: but we can help them actually succeed in it because
Speaker 4: a lot of times people struggle when they don't have transportation,
Speaker 4: they don't have a job to pay for things like
Speaker 4: drug tests, and then they struggle to complete it and
Speaker 4: they don't show up and then they fail and then
Speaker 4: they go back to jail. And so when we can
Speaker 4: make sure they get there, we can make sure they're
Speaker 4: fulfilling all the things they're supposed to do. You know,
Speaker 4: we're drug testing them as well and doing all that
Speaker 4: that Now they actually have a structure to help them
Speaker 4: complete it and they're succeeding and they're all of a
Speaker 4: sudden graduating from those programs and so it takes some
Speaker 4: it takes someone on one work and some group work
Speaker 4: with them. Oftentimes people are coming and they're just they're
Speaker 4: broken by a lot of the things that they've been
Speaker 4: through and they need somebody to give them some structure
Speaker 4: and direction, and so that's that's what we come in.
Speaker 4: It's just it's a lot of we're going to walk
Speaker 4: through this with you. And when they get overwhelmed by it,
Speaker 4: and I'm like, they're telling me, you know, I can't
Speaker 4: get funding for this.
Speaker 3: I don't have my driver's license. They're telling me I
Speaker 3: can't get it back.
Speaker 4: And we have people in our office that are you know,
Speaker 4: they'll they'll talk to Shelley and shell I say, I
Speaker 4: know how that works.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: We'll call this person in that person and you just
Speaker 4: have to fill this out and we'll go do it.
Speaker 3: And pretty soon they've got it worked out. And you know,
Speaker 3: then they're like.
Speaker 4: Oh, they don't know how to work these systems and
Speaker 4: how to get some of these things fixed.
Speaker 2: I'm pretty well convinced that most people aren't supposed to
Speaker 2: know how the system works.
Speaker 4: It gets very confusing and you get all these mixed
Speaker 4: messages and so but we've been dealing with this for
Speaker 4: a while, and we've dealt with a lot of people,
Speaker 4: and so our ladies in our office they know how
Speaker 4: these systems work, and so they can say, oh, you
Speaker 4: know what, there's funding for that. You know you can
Speaker 4: get you know, you can get housing money from this
Speaker 4: organization who has funding. Oh I never knew that, but
Speaker 4: we know how the system works, and we can help
Speaker 4: you get that.
Speaker 3: You and help people get a help when.
Speaker 4: They realize they lost their driver's license and they it's
Speaker 4: just they owe this fine and once they pay that fine,
Speaker 4: then get their license back.
Speaker 3: Okay, well let's help you figure out how to get
Speaker 3: that fine paid.
Speaker 4: Then we can these A lot of these things are
Speaker 4: fixable problems, but people don't have any idea how to
Speaker 4: do it. And so then when you go in and
Speaker 4: you help them, and now all of a sudden, they've
Speaker 4: got that obstacle cleared. Now they can get back on
Speaker 4: their life, you know, they can get in track.
Speaker 1: They see that glimmer of hope.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and once that light of hope is lit, Hey,
Speaker 2: some folks are just unstoppable.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is. It's amazing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, when you see people changed, where instead of just
Speaker 4: being defeated and broken that they start to see hope.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it makes a huge difference.
Speaker 2: All it needs is one victory, sometimes one small one
Speaker 2: to get you a little momentum in the right direction.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and then get to work, and then and having
Speaker 4: support along the way when they know they have people
Speaker 4: that are they when they're frustrated and they're fed up
Speaker 4: and they're just stressed out, why isn't this happening any faster?
Speaker 4: They have people that can come to and talk to now,
Speaker 4: and they have people that care about them that are
Speaker 4: gonna listen, They're gonna care and say no, stick with it,
Speaker 4: we're gonna get there.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: Sometimes they just need that to be able to vent.
Speaker 4: Don't give up, don't just blow it off and say
Speaker 4: run off and you know, throw it all away. You know,
Speaker 4: in those down moments, they have somebody to talk to
Speaker 4: and say, no, stick with it. It's going to get there.
Speaker 4: It just takes a little longer.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: We do a lot of that too, just manage the
Speaker 4: emotions of the stressful process.
Speaker 2: A lot of power there in the positives, yeah, folk,
Speaker 2: So let's keep the positives going. We'll see out there
Speaker 2: on Friday and Saturday to help out in Nemia Community
Speaker 2: Development and it's their second annual rubbage sale. Boy, I
Speaker 2: remember when this took off last year. That was a
Speaker 2: big deal. It was, and this is going to be
Speaker 2: a bigger deal.
Speaker 3: We had a big crowd last year. It's right on
Speaker 3: seventy five, so we get a lot of drive by traffic.
Speaker 2: So it's going to be right there at the old
Speaker 2: Emerald In Hotel, right there on the seventy five, just
Speaker 2: north of Frank Phillips.
Speaker 1: Hey, Mike, thank you for being here. It'll be a stranger.
Speaker 3: Thank you for having me. It has been awfume.
Speaker 2: All right, we get to learn a lot. All right, folks,
Speaker 2: We've got news coming up next.