Welcome, Welcome, welcome, and it's time now for our community connection right here on K one, the one you trust, Whitney Doland. We've been seeing an awful lot of you and that means we've got some good news coming up about the million meals with our Best Bank.
Yeah, we're three fourths of the way there. We've raised over twelve thousand dollars for Marymoth Outreach right here in Bartlesville. Wow, and we have a few weeks to go. Our goal is to get to a little over sixteen thousand, and so we're right on target. And so I just want to say a huge thank you to everyone who's made a donation. It really has made a huge impact and
we'll continue to make an impact in this community. And so, but we got a little ways to go, and so if you haven't made that donation yet, we would love for you to come by and make one in any of our locations here in Bartlesville or do we And of course you can make a donation on your RVESO app as well.
That is one of the coolest things I've ever put on my phone. Yeah, it's it helps in so many ways, a lot of questions, saves a lot of heartache and it brings a lot of joy. Yeah yip, we got some anyway. So with this million meals, what we have is a big footprint because our best is just not in Dewey and in Bartlesville, but our food partner is.
Yes. Absolutely, So the goal with one million meals is that we work with local food partners. So, of course our vest is located in four states, and each one of those communities that we serve, we work with someone locally to be able to raise those donations for the money to stay in the community in which we serve. So if you're making a donation here in Bartlesville or in Dewey, it stays right here in local We also have a food partner in no Wada. There's a great
food pantry there called Fishes and Loaves. Yes, and if you make a donation in our No Wada branch, the money stays right there in no Wata as well.
Very good, you know, this is such a help to a lot of people, and for those of us who go about our day in day out and we see all my goodness, life's a bit of a struggle. There are folks who really know what the word struggle means they're missing meals, their kids are missing meals. Sometimes it's down to one meal a day or a big decision on who's going to eat.
Absolutely. You know, Missy was here the first time we sat down on Community Connection in early May, and one of the things that she mentioned was that, you know, they aren't getting the donations that they've received previously. They're about they're down seventy five percent in their donations and so that food shortage is really critical to them right now.
And we know that here in Oklahoma we're fifth in the nation and food insecurities, and so there are a lot of people who are trying to make that decision do I pay rent, do I buy food? Do I pay for prescriptions, or do I buy food? And so we want to be able to ease that stress level for them so that they don't have to make those decisions.
They can go and Misty Wishall and her team over at Mary Martha can make really good care of them and help provide some meals so they don't have to make those hard decisions.
And there are so many people who don't qualify for other programs, but they're going through the CRA accident that's where Mary Martha, make sure that they don't good safety net that we have there and a great partnership we have with them housos and lobes over there and no Wa they do the same thing. Now, now we've got what four states. We have Oklahoma, we have Kansas, we have Missouri and Arkansas that we service with the our best footprints. Yes, sir, that's a big footprint.
It is a big footprint. We serve over eight hundred thousand households and we just it's a privileged to us to be able to operate in our four footprints. And we have great customers. We work with great partners. There's a couple other people I want to shout out today, Tom is. We even work with great small business customers here too. And one of the things two of those small businesses have partnered with us during this Mary Martha or during this fundraising and belt for one million meals.
A couple of weeks ago, Pops Donuts out on No Water Road, all of the proceeds from one of the days of their sales that they partnered with us to be able to give twenty percent of those proceeds to to one million meals. And so, you know, it's so awesome the generosity of small business owners. But we want to thank Pops for that partnership. It was a couple
of Wednesdays ago. They again all of the money that they raised or that they were able to take in that day, twenty percent of that they gave to one million meals. So we really appreciate that. The other one is Moxie on second, the awesome people, Christy and her team. They did an awesome job of Before actually our program started, we sold we had some shamrock pins for Saint Patti's Day and they put them in their their store and asked for donations for us. And so those partnerships are
so important to us. You know, really the heart of a community is the small businesses that are here. And so we just want to say thank you to those small businesses who partnered along the way with us.
Man that is great. Maybe they can start a snowball effect for next year. That would really be pretty darn cool. But right now, thank you very much for what you've done small businesses here in town. Now, you mentioned that Oklahoma is fifth in food insecurity. Now I would have never guessed that. I never would have but it is. It's true, and there are a lot of folks who might be walking around smiling, Yeah, I'm good, not really.
Yeah, And you know, we're getting close to summer. Kids are getting out for school, and you know a lot of our schools have free lunch programs and so families counted on those free lunches to be able to support those those children during the day, and now they're going to be at home and they may not have that support.
So it's really critical that we are able to provide those donations so that during the summer, families again there's an additional stress there sometimes that maybe we can take away and they can have some additional support from some of our local food pantries.
Wow. How long has our Best been doing this? It's been a while.
Yes, this is our fifteenth year anniversary. Yeah, and it's very much a passion project for us. I was thinking the other day, Tom about the people that are important in my life, and I thought about my great grandmother and she was a great cook, you know, she was I dream about her food.
Now.
She died several years ago, but one of the things that the way that she showed love was she just invited people to come have a meal, right, And a lot of families out there experience that in their life.
And one of the things that I was thinking about is, you know, giving a donation like this to one million meals is just that showing of love for people who may not be able to offer another people a meal in their home, but they can offer them a meal to make in their own home and again, and it's just a way to show people love, to care about people, and to be able to provide that support to those in need.
Uh huh.
So I would just you know, encourage people if they have like a loved one, that they think about their meals that they made years and years and years ago that made such an impact on your life. Maybe this is a great time to make a donation and be able to feed others around you like they fed you.
You know, we have Mother's Day coming up on Sunday. Just imagine your Mama's love. Yes, And when you make that donation, you can.
Do it that way too, absolutely.
But you know, and the thing is, it's so much better to give than receipt. And there are some folks who might not understand that. But when you walk away after making that donation.
You're going, yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah.
Somebody's gonna somebody's gonna use this greatly.
And just as a reminder, you know, one hundred percent of your donation goes to Mary Martha. There's no we take zero money. We just no administration, no administray. We just collect the donations and then we are able to be able to give those straight to Mary Martha preach.
Wow, that is amazing. So fifteen years in doing this and you've raised millions of dollars for millions and meals.
Absolutely, that is amazing. Yes, so we've been able to provide you know, several meals for people, but we've raised over two million dollars in monetary donations in the last fifteen years and we want to continue that effort. You know, this is just another way we continue continue it and we're just really grateful to have the opportunity to, you know, help support a great organization like Mary Martha.
Wow, this is amazing. And again we've got the website you can go to and you can get all your questions to answered. We have that and you can also donate on that website.
What is it, it's ourvest dot com forward slash million Meals.
Yes, even I can get there.
Yeah, absolutely, but there's lots of information out there, and of course you're going to see in the upcoming weeks our check presentation as soon as we're able to finish out our fundraising, so it won't stop here. You'll be able to see that. We'll send it over to the radio. So if you are a yes, if you're a listener, if you're able to get on their website, you'll see all of the fruits of our labor here the last few weeks.
Yes, it's been a lot of hard work, but it's been a lot of joyful work.
It has been, and there's still some great things that we're doing. We are accepting. We're doing a chain drive right now on our branches. They have some goodie bags in the branches for moms. So if you are that last minute shopper and you need something for this weekend, they have some goodie bags. They're just asking for five dollars donations for those. Also, this week is Nurses Appreciation
Week and Teachers Appreciation Week. We appreciate all three absolutely, and so if you need you know, if you have a nurse in your life or a teacher who you want to be able to spoil a little bit. You can use those gift bags for something like that. I'm using those today for some daycare workers that we have that support our family. And so just to say, hey, you know, we appreciate you, we're thinking about you, and you're making a great donation to a great cost.
It's great all the way around Whitney doing that. We've got a couple of locations here in town and and Dewey. Tell folks where you can find it.
Sure, we're located here in Bartlesville in our downtown location right off Frank Phillips Boulevard. We're located at our Colonial location, which is off seventy five south of town, and then of course our east side location is off Adam's Boulevard across from Walmart, and then Dewey is right up seventy five. Any of those locations that are easiest for you to
get to, we'd be happy to see you. Thank you for your donation, and you can absolutely pick up one of those goodie bags at any of those locations.
Well, that is nice to know. Wait, do you thank you and have a great Mother's Day.
Thank you appreciate that.
And I hope to see you here real soon again, and we're going to be looking forward to that check presentation as well.
Absolutely, that's gonna be great.
All right, Thank you folks you've been watching and listening to are