Service 23 Jun 2008 07:17 pm
Oak Grove Community Project
Day 11 - June 21
As part of the One Prayer Series being guided by LifeChurch.tv, our church joined with other churches in the area for a day of service in our community. The metro-area churches (those that are physically located in the Oklahoma City area) have been working with a community of under served people who live in public housing called “Oak Grove”.
The Oak Grove Public Housing Community is the largest Section 8 apartment complex in Oklahoma City with 1,200 residents in 255 apartments divided into 16 sections. Ninety-five percent of the residents are single mothers and their children and while ethnically diverse, sixty-five percent are his Hispanic.
From the One Prayer Mission blog: “Our first priority on this day was to build relationships with the residents of Oak Grove and we added to that various tasks that will help beautify their neighborhood and their lives.”
I think we accomplished many of our goals. It was refreshing to see these young kids with smiles on their faces happily engaging with our community - helping water the freshly planted landscaping, painting and doing crafts at the art tables, happily munching on snacks, hot dogs and sodas (we need to consider better nutrition!!) and most lively of all - sliding on the giant slip-n-slide volunteers and the fire department created on the big lawn. Overall it was a hot and rewarding day. We planted beds with new shrubs, flowers and mulch. We also had free haircuts, health checks and portraits made for families. It was heart-warming to be working on the flower beds and look up and see an entire family in their best outfits headed over to get their portrait taken. I would love to see those portraits all grouped together and know that they were full of hope.
The day ended earlier than expected when we ran out of mulch. Looking around the complex and seeing the freshly planted beds was satisfying. I hope that the families living there were encouraged and inspired by our hard work. Hopefully we’ll be going back there in the near future for more projects.
Here are some cool stories from others who were a part of this project.
I’ll post photos of the work my team accomplished later. My camera is not in the same location as my laptop.
