ABILITY WORKS

Good morning, good morning, good morning, and welcome, welcome, welcome it. It is time now for our community connection right here on K one, the one you trust in. Today we have our friends in from Ability Works and we're going to talk about a lot of good things, a lot of fun and of.

Course the great things that happened to Edibility Works.

First of all rebeccay ingram Our CEO and also Beth the Flowers are fundraising committee at chair. So we've got a lot of things going on Edibility Works.

How are we doing?

Billy Works is fantastic.

You guys are always busy. We're very busy.

Every day is a new day. You never know what you're gonna get, like a boxer cracker jacks. But yeah, we we have a good time.

It keeps it interesting, keeps you hopping.

Life is very interesting. But we're doing great things and we're very we're very excited of.

What we do and tell people what it is that you do.

Ability Works of Oklahoma, Incorporated is located here in Bartlesville and we provide residential and ocasional services to people with intellectual and development mental disabilities.

Good and we've got a fundraiser coming up to keep the boat a floating as they say.

And this is where Beth comes in. How you doing, Beth, I'm doing great.

Well, you're going to be doing better here because you got some fun in your fundraiser.

Tell us about this fantastic thing.

Well, every year we pick a new theme too for our fundraiser and to raise money. And this year our theme is come cruise with us, and so we're inviting everybody to come and dress up in their cruise war and we are decorations. The room will look like a ship and we're so excited about it. We're we holding this hill Chris Country Club. And what's the day, first Friday in September.

Well, that's coming up real quick, it is, it is.

I hope we're ready.

How do we get tickets for this? Well, tickets can.

Be purchased online at abilityworksokay dot org, or you can come to our offices at five Oho one South Virginia Avenue.

I invite you to go to the offices because you've got to be sprised what you get to see. Absolutely, it's a beautiful facility, ability inside and out. You got to be so proud of that.

We're very proud our Board of directors has been very amazing over the years and they've really set us up.

Well, how long you've been in business over there, Well, I have.

Been the CEO of Ability Works since January of twenty nineteen, prior to that. Actually, this is a good opportunity Ability Works of Oklahoma as actually the community of Bartleswell would know us as ARC our ARC Group Homes and Employability. So when I was hired in January of twenty nineteen, one of the first things our board of directors asked me to do was merge Employability into ARC Group Homes and then the company was renamed Ability Works of Oklahoma.

So we are ARC.

We get called that often and we're okay with that. That's what we're dis going is the community and yes, and that's that's where we began.

So yeah, well it's a wonderful story.

Yeah, you did that just as COVID was was kicking in and you're able to get through all of that to become what you are today, which beautiful.

Yes, yes, that is.

That's really a remarkable story.

I can't tell you how blessed Ability Works is to have Becky.

She'd be shy.

She does such a wonderful job, and the client's lover. Everybody that meets her loves her, and she does such a great job. We're blessed. We're blessed on radio.

It wouldn't happen for you. Appreciate that very much.

I love what I do.

I truly do, and it's it's just a joy to come to work every day. We've got some amazing employees, some of the best, and I just absolutely love coming to work every day.

I tell you what that's not. That's not something everybody has. And you're you're blessed to have that.

It is a blessing and I don't take it for granted.

Now, now coming up with the fundraiser here, Uh, this is just going to be a blast.

And uh it's always fun.

Well it's got to be. Let me look at this. You got the big cruise ship taken off out there from the country club and and uh and you don't have we're not sure where it's going, but you.

Won't get lost at sea. It's not the ss Mino. I just want to make sure we heard it won't be that. Now, what can we expect that once we come on.

Board, Well, we're all we always have fabulous food, Hillcrest is so good to us with working with our menu and they have a wonderful chef and we're always proud of the food that we have there. And we are going to have you know, Caribbean cocktails, and the entertainment is going to be great. We've got a DJ that helps us every year, and we've chosen music to to help with the theme. The theme, and we always the main thing is our silent auction and our live auction.

You were telling me about one of these, and it is amazing.

Red Drummond has been so generous and she has donated a dinner for sixteen and uh for dinner and happy hour and then a stay in her boarding house for all sixteen guests.

So that's hard to do because that boarding house is usually booked two or three years.

And she is so generous and she makes sure that there is a night for us every year and we're so grateful.

Wowodsakes, we all think you want to burst. Got Leah, that's that's generous.

It's a hot item.

So I'd say we also.

Have five our dinner package with Broadway, where five restaurants in town have donated a dinner for two to be coupled with the Broadway shows that come in nice. Yeah, that's a fun one. That's a fun package. It's a show and dinner with five different restaurants in town. And also Adrian and David Colway have been so generous this year.

I tell you what their businesses have been just crowd like.

They you know, own the Palace Rooms and Lollipops, and they have donated dinner at the Palace Rooms for I'm sorry. They've also opened up a speakeasy and it's called nineteen oh eight, and so they've donated a dinner for six for their new speakeasy which I haven't seen yet but

Wow live live auction. Who's who's conducting your live auction?

We have different people every year and it's oh, hold on, it's an auctionnaire.

Skelly Roger Rogers, well friend of mine.

Yeah, he does such a great jobious. He's part of the entertainment, needless to say, and he helps us so often, so we're glad he's doing it again this year.

Oh man, this is going to be a lot of fun.

And of course the money race goes back to making sure Ability Works keeps the doors open and keeps things going correct.

Man a lot.

That is quite an organization you have there, and it's really nice that have wonderful people on your committee there to put together something as nice and wonderful as this.

Yeah, I mean, like I said, this fundraiser committee, Jenny Kirkpatrick and Beth and just a whole lot of them. They're they're just amazing people in general. And again it's just another blessing that Ability Works has. So we're very fortunate.

Well, thank you for being in our neighborhood. We appreciate that. It's a pleasure to be here. My family goes out to visit every now and then and they say, look away you.

Tell them about the new recycling.

I think that is Oh yeah, that is the best the recycling.

Oh so, Ability Works as a thrift shop and a Virginia building five oh went South Virginia. And then behind our big building is our recycling center. So we recycle cardboard, we shred paper for the community. We also can come pick things up. Any donations for the thrift store, we can also pick those up. So if you need a pick up, if you have a donation or something of that swort, please call our office.

Yeah wow.

We also are getting ready to open a second donation center at no Water Road in Highway seventy five, next to mister Rainey's insurance office. Yeah, so that'll just be a donation only but just on the other side of town. So help the community a little bit with if they have donations.

You guys, just don't stop moving. We're pretty busy. There's some goodies in that thrift shop. I'm saying, oh there are, oh, there are lots of moving parts. Oh yeah.

She just so calm about it here and I'm sitting like, well, my gosh, the thing was going a mile a minute back there.

But oh yeah. So once again, the date and where we can get.

The first Friday in September Hillcrest Country Club.

And he's on September sixth, and you can purchase the tickets at our offices or at Ability Works. Okay, dot org.

Okay, there you go.

It's very easy to remain Ladies, Have I forgotten anything or have we not covered something?

Because I know we got a bunch. You got a couple more, don't you know?

I don't got them?

Alrighty, I just want to make sure I don't want to we do that looking like well something here.

We mentioned our live auction, but we didn't talk about our silent auction. We have artwork donated, we have pottery donated, we have jewelry donated, we have packages for hotels in town, dinners, don't I mean there is a lot there and it's a lot of fun and it's fun to do the bidding.

You just never know what you're gonna go. That's right, you really don't.

Oh well, thank you for visiting with us here today, and folks Visitability Works. Make sure you go to your website get the tickets. We'll see you on the cruise.

With us with us.

Thank you, thank you for