Summer2022Newsletter VisioninAction LeadingOklahomaCity'sBeautification andEnvironmentalStewardshipThrough Collaboration,Education,andAdvocacy
With the close of the Tree Bank Foundation after 30 service to Oklahoma, OKC Beautiful launched a new program, Tree OKC, to ensure a continued focus on expanding the tree canopy in Oklahoma City. "This is exciting synergy," said Tree Bank Foundatio President Fenton Rood. "The collaboration will allow us to reduce our administrative costs so we can plant more trees."
OKC Beautiful has alread beg n efforts ith tree plantings and g on track to plan 800 trees by the calendar year
OKC Beautiful and the Tree Bank Foundation have worked together on numerous projects in the metro a and both organizations have been dedicated to expand the tree canopy in Oklahoma City OKC Beautiful was founded in 1968 to beautify and sustain the Oklahoma City community and has enhanced the community through litter abatement and prevention, tree plantings, public space improvements, and environmental education.
The consolidation means a renewed focus on tree planting and education within the Oklahoma City metro area and additional efforts to expand tree canopy in Oklahoma City The establishment of the Tree OKC program within OKC Beautiful will focus on these initiatives “We are looking forward to expanding our efforts in fostering green spaces in Oklahoma City,” said Lisa Synar, Executive Director of OKC Beautiful. “This consolidation means an opportunity to expand tree canopy in the metro area, in collaboration with the City of Oklahoma City, Department of Transportation, and additional partners interested in creating a greener Oklahoma City.”
LaunchofTreeOKCCreatesAddedFocus onExpandingOklahomaCity'sTreeCanopy
“The consolidation of the Tree Bank to become part of OKC Beautiful’s mission to beautify, educate, and sustain helps strengthen our community’s focus on doing everything possible to make Oklahoma City a more attractive, livable and quality place to live, work, and play,” said Hardy Watkins, OKC Beautiful President. “It makes sense that we come together. Community partners can rest assured their gifts of time and money will be invested wisely and pay dividends for generations to come.”
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An empty lot was converted into a northeast Oklahoma City, in collab several community partners. Tabith Park is now a community gatherin serves the surrounding neighborho The land where the community par owned by Tabitha Baptist Church, for decades, and now serves as a g members of the community. Locat Elementary and within a residentia intended to bring residents togethe programming and provide an area for outdoor recreation. The park includes a walking trail, amphitheater, butterfly garden, and seating area "We are absolutely delighted to be able to contribute to the building and beautification of our community. The Tabitha Church Family is dedicated to Connecting Generations to Faith, Family and Fellowship for a bright and Hopeful future," said a representative of Tabitha Baptist Church. The grand opening was celebrated on June 29th with free food and live music and speeches by Mayor Holt, Council Member Nikki Nice, and other community leaders. The project shows the power of collaboration and vision when community groups partner. Community partners funding and facilitating the project were Tabitha Baptist Church, the Lynn Institute, OKC Beautiful, the Oklahoma City Community Foundation, Inasmuch Foundation, Keep Oklahoma Beautiful, Oklahoma Department of Transportation, Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality, Keep America Beautiful, and Total Environment. You can visit the Tabitha Community Park on the northeast corner of N Page Avenue and NE 11th Street, directly west of the Tabitha Baptist Church located at 1219 NE Grand Blvd.
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OKCHarvestExpandstoWilsonElementarySchool
OKC Harvest has gone through a transition over the past few years to focus on educators based within our school gardens The garden educators coordinate weekly maintenance and provide garden lessons regularly to students The garden based and health centered curriculum ties into state academic standards and emphasizes science, math and language concepts. Health, social studies and art concepts are also consistently woven in. We are committed to continuing the garden educator model in our pilot program schools permanently and ultimately replicating the program throughout the district and beyond. As such, we are expanding into an additional garden this fall at Wilson Elementary School. At Wilson Elementary, grades Kindergarten through 4th Grade will receive regular lessons in their newly established school garden, tying in curriculum built around state academic standards. Students will have the opportunity to plant and tend to their garden, as well as harvesting and tasting the foods they have grown. Why is OKC Beautiful investing in school gardens? Because a child who has experienced nature can learn to care about it. We want to help nurture the next generation of environmental stewards who will be involved and active in helping to make Oklahoma City a beautiful, safe and healthy place to live. During even the most basic gardening experiences, students benefit physically, mentally and emotionally. Sometimes the positive effects are immediate in the form of improved mood, but we understand that, more importantly, each garden lesson leaves impressions on students that have life-long positive impacts, including their propensity to eat fruits and vegetables as adults. You can learn more about OKC Harvest at www.okcbeautiful.com.
Cynthia Brindley is a long-time volunteer for OKC Beautiful, having dedicated her time to the organization since the early 1990s. Early in her time volunteering with OKC Beautiful, she proposed the idea for our Mother Earth program, reaching elementary school students with an introductory understanding of caring for the environment Today, Cynthia continues as a dedicated volunteer, serving on OKC Beautiful's Board and as the Chair of the Program Committee. As an educator, Cynthia believes in the value of instilling in children a love of nature and the environment. Her teaching career started in 1977, educating at the 3rd grade level. In 1981, she obtained a Master in Gifted Education, while working in education in the metro area. Shortly after, she began a 35-year position teaching brainstorming and creative thinking skills to 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders at Westminster School in Oklahoma City. The idea for the Mother Earth program came to Cynthia as she was grappling with the issue of litter, not only in Oklahoma City, but universally. "I thought that if we could somehow get kids invested in a beautiful environment, then maybe they would grow up to expect a litter free world and do what it takes to make that happen," Cynthia said. "I sat down with two board members and friends and started brainstorming with them about solutions. I had read something about how a play can reach a lot of people at once, and I thought maybe that would work! I did research about plays for kids and then we just put together a very simple message via a play."
Cynthia has been a dedicated member of the Oklahoma City community for decades and serves as a strong ambassador for our city. "My favorite thing about OKC is the people," Cynthia said "I’m from North Dakota, so I love the Midwest, and Oklahoma City has those same kind, loving, compassionate and supportive people!"
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Cynthia and other volunteers portrayed characters in the Mother Earth play and began visiting elementary schools with the production. A modification of this play still exists today through our Mother Earth program and reaches an 15,000+ students each year with messaging about litter, recycling, water conservation, a love of nature, and more.
Cynthia continues to serve the Oklahoma City community as a volunteer Board Member with OKC Beautiful, serving as an ambassador at the information desk at Will Rogers World Airport, and volunteering with her church. She has been married to her husband Jerry for 40 years and in her free time enjoys reading, cooking, walking, and traveling. When she thinks of a future Oklahoma City, she hopes to "keep working to make it even more beautiful with landscape projects, planting tons of trees, and of course maintaining a litter free environment." We are so appreciative for the time and creativity
Gabriel Friedman is the artist working to construct the piece. He is an Oklahoma City based sculptural and large scale 3D artist, photographer, builder, teacher, and father. His works and mediums are site-specific, ranging from the whimsical to the absurd. He has training and extensive experience in a variety of materials and mediums including carpentry and woodworking, naturally harvested materials, metal and welding, blacksmithing, general construction and contracting.
“We are looking forward to seeing this educational piece of art come to life,” said Lisa Synar, Executive Director of OKC Beautiful “This unique piece will draw attention to the creative reuse of a variety of found materials by volunteers into a creative form and promote recycling, litter abatement, and resource conservation. We are grateful for the partnership with Scissortail Park to provide a home for this fun educational art.”
OKC Beautiful engages volunteers throughout the year with litter abatement efforts, but in the 1990s, began focusing on prevention methods for reducing litter, such as education in schools and public information campaigns. This art piece will serve as a way to communicate about the harms of litter, impact of single use materials, and ways that we can take action to reduce and prevent litter.
OKC Beautiful is working with local artist Gabriel Friedman to construct a sculpture made of trash as a way to communicate about the harms of litter and single use materials.
The piece will be installed in the southeast corner of Scissortail Park’s developing Lower Park and will be constructed using trash collected by volunteers during litter cleanups. Anyone can participate in collecting materials during volunteer events.
The placement at Scissortail Park is fitting, given the organization’s commitment to eco friendly practices The Scissortail Park Foundation has committed to no use of styrofoam or plastic water bottles, uses a variety of water and pollinator conscious landscaping practices, and incorporates nature and environmental education in their programming OKC Beautiful’s litter abatement efforts engage more than 5,000 volunteers each year. To complete this piece, volunteer assistance is needed to gather materials during clean ups.
“This art piece will come about in a totally collaborative nature and has the potential to engage residents throughout our community,” said Natalie Evans, Program & Marketing Director for OKC Beautiful. “Volunteers will have a unique opportunity to participate in creating an art piece out of trash and will be able to say that they helped this vision come to life. We look forward to getting our community involved.”
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LitterBlitzandBeyond! We continue to be reinvigorated by the participation of our community in helping to keep our city clean! 2022's LitterBlitz had a strong start, with our April campaign bringing in thousands of volunteers to participate. We provide supplies and coordination for litter clean ups year-round. Consider putting together a team to help pick up trash in our community with friends, family, coworkers, civic club, or other organization. Not sure where to go? We are happy to provide a recommendation! Visit www.okcbeautiful.com or contact natalie@okcbeautiful.com to register a clean up event and receive supplies LitterBlitz By the Numbers So far in 2022... 3,000 volunteers 350+ tires removed from parks 100,000+ pounds of trash collected 200+ volunteer groups
We kicked off a new program this year with "Sustainability Social Hour." Hosted on the second Wednesday of every month, we invite all community members who care about Oklahoma City and the environment to come together and celebrate progress in various sustainability fields Each session features a different guest speaker who shares their expertise with the audience. Featured topics so far this year have included plant based plastic alternatives, commercial composting, farmers markets and local food sourcing, fast fashion, bike initiatives, and more. The intent of the program is to share successes in sustainability in Oklahoma City, while bringing together people with common environmental interests. Visit www.okcbeautiful to learn about our upcoming session and register. Contact natalie@okcbeautiful.com to recommend a potential topic or guest speaker.
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With in person events returning this year, we revamped our Grow OKC programming to focus on sustainability education and engaging programming for adults. Recent classes have included topics like vermicomposting, zero waste practices, houseplant basics, an electric bike tour of Oklahoma City parks, and a sustainable yard class. These classes and events are planned and put on by a volunteer program committee made up of young professionals in Oklahoma City. Classes are free or low cost and provide opportunities for members of the community to learn about various sustainability practices in fun environments. To learn more about upcoming classes and events, visit www.okcbeautiful.com.
OKC Harvest students got to complete the spring semester with salad parties. We celebrated the young gardeners by serving them spring salads with scratch-made dressing. They got to see how the dressing was made and learn how they can take vegetables made in the garden to create something delicious. By teaming up with the Physical Education classes, we were able to reinforce the importance of nutritious foods as a part of being healthy
You can learn more about the many benefits of school gardens at www okcbeautiful com
The impact OKC Harvest has on benefiting students’ classroom experiences and understanding of nutrition is incredibly important. We received this feedback from a fourth grade educator at Bodine Elementary: “Our students live in a food desert, often eating processed foods that are high in fats and sugars. The garden lessons have given our students a greater understanding of nutrition. Students who typically avoid vegetables in the cafeteria were more open to trying the fruits and veggies during garden lessons. They were more open to this experience because they helped plant the seeds and they watched it grow They were given more ownership of their nutritional experience ”
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An important tenant of our school garden program is to involve students not only in the planting and growing of produce, but to also provide frequent opportunities for them to taste vegetables.
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AmessagefromOKCBeautifulExecutiveDirectorLisaSynar: “For54years,OKCBeautifulhasbeenasignificantpartoftheprogress ofOklahomaCity.Togetherwehavemadeovera$6.8milliondollar investmentinourcommunityandanother$30millioninvolunteervalue hours,directlyimprovingtheeconomicviabilityofourcityandthe qualityoflifeforourcommunity.Weinviteyoutobebecomeapartner inourcontinuedprogressintheareasofbeautification,litter abatement,environmentaleducation,andsustainability.Weknowthere aremorechallengingtimesahead,buttogetherwewillcontinueto changelivesinourgreatcommunity.Togetherwewillcontinuetohelp ourenvironmentalandeconomicresourcesthrive.Togetherwewill educateandempoweryoungpeopletotakecareoftheearth.Thank youforbeingpartnerinourpastsuccess.Weaskyoutocontinuetobe apartofourprogressthroughour2023AnnualCampaign." OklahomaRedbud|$2,500 Annualsubscriptionandrecognitioninnewsletter;recognitionon website;recognitiononsocialmedia;sponsorshiprecognitionatall majorfundraisingevents;atreeplantedinyourhonor 2023AnnualCampaign-"FlourishTogether" MightyOak|$1,500-$2,499 Subscription&recognitionintheOKCBeautifulnewsletter;recognition onwebsite;sponsorshiprecognitionatallmajorfundraisingevents RoyalCypress|$1,000-$1,499 SubscriptionandrecognitionintheOKCBeautifulnewsletter; recognitiononwebsite;sponsorshiprecognitionattheAnnual DistinguishedServiceAwardsLuncheon BlazeMaple|$500-$999 Subscription&recognitioninnewsletter;recognitiononwebsite Elm|$25-$499 Subscriptiontonewsletter 405.525.8822 info@okcbeautiful.com @okcbeautiful www.okcbeautiful.com GivingLevels:
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