Good morning, good morning, good morning, and welcome, welcome, welcome. It is time now for our community connection right here on K one, little one, you trust. We're on not only Facebook Live today, but also on heywetv dot com and first right here on your radio at AM fourteen hundred FM, ninety three point three and ninety five point one where everywhere we've got the Salvation Army. It was us today and believe it or not, they're everywhere too, and that's that's what I like. We have Ronda, and
we also have Monica in here today. And Monica, I want to start with you, first of all, welcome back, thank you, thank you for having us today and great and of course Roddy you're with us here today.
You're on the board. How you doing you get all things ready for fool?
We are getting ready for fall. We have a lot of fun things coming up.
As I know, we got a great, big one coming up and we're going to get to that hearing a second.
It's a yummy good thing. As a matter of fact.
Now, Monica, we've been very very busy with the summer camps. Outstanding attendance.
Yes, what's exciting is we actually served twice as many children this summer as we have in the past few years, and the only thing that held us back from hosting more kids was a lack of vehicles to transport them in. So, you know, that's a big dream of ours to be able to grow the program and have more kids because one of the things about the Salvation Army and our
summer camp is they really develop good, good character. I fortunately get to go and do a little cultural lesson with them every once in a while, and these kids, they just soak it up. They are so so hungry for attention and learning it. It's really really wonderful to be with these kids. And you had that experience too over here and you saw how attentive they are and how hungry for information they are.
They came in and boy, everything was brand new to them and I hadn't seen that in a long time, and it was so refreshing.
It was really great to see. Thanks for be going to buy Yeah.
And then something else we did with our kids this summer is we had about twelve young people go to our camp Away camp. It's in Welling, Oklahoma. It's near Tallaquah. It's called Heart of Hills, and the kids got to go to camp and experience you know, overnights and camping and all the things that kids get to do at camp, you know, swimming, making friends and boy. I mean that gives their parents a little respite too, right.
Thank you? Yeah. Yeah. So one of.
The things that makes our programs successful though, are all the other organizations that partner with us during the summer. This summer, we worked with Heart Matters, the boy Scouts, Family and Children's Services, the Rock Kawanas and others, and they all came alongside with our Children's Day camp and just made it more special by providing fun and educational activities. For instance, I think the boy Scouts partnered with us to do a Derby race, and so the kids got to do the derby race.
Yeah.
How great is that? So you know, it takes a village, right Yeah.
And by golly, when you start bringing in partners and the fund just expands a little bit, you know, and you get a different.
Breath of experience of.
Going on there with the kids get to see everything as wide open as the world can be through their eyes.
At that point, that's great.
Yeah, you know, that's what we try to do, is provide them with you know a bigger vision, so they know that they have opportunities in this world.
Well that's needed, because I know from a lot of people and maybe even a little bit on my own self, if you're in a certain way as a child, and all you see is all you know, and if you don't get to see much because of economics or whatever, you find yourself pretty limited. And the only limit is you because you know, you're just not familiar with all the opportunities that are out There are different ways of even looking at a situation.
Right.
Well, it's funny you'd mentioned economics, because one of the things that Lieutenant Tanya thought would be really really important for the kids this year is for them to have age appropriate books. So at the grade schools, if my memory is good, they used to have little book fairs, and she knew that most of the kids in our
program probably didn't get to participate in those. Oh yeah, and so she collected donated books and on the last day of our summer camp program there at the at the Core, she made sure they got to go through a little quote book fair and take home three books that they chose.
Nice. That's a big deal for a kid.
It is it is I remember when they had the little a buck for a book thing back in the sixties and year like that. You know, that was a big deal. It saved up your lawnmower money for that.
Yeah.
Now we have a big event and I understand that Ron is kind of in charge of this thing because the Salvation Army needs fuel to run. It's a beautiful engine. Fuel sometimes means money. But we're going to put some fun in fundraising, aren't we tell us about this big.
Dinner we got coming up.
Well, you know, back in the day, they did a spaghetti dinner for years and years and years and then that five letter word hit called COVID, and they haven't been able to to to We're just now starting to do our fundraising again since COVID, so they hasn't taken place for the last you know, three four years, and so we have set November the seventh to start our fundraising opportunities for our community and we will be seeking out,
you know, corporate sponsors. But they're going to hold their dinner on November the seventh at Adams Boulevard Church of.
Christ, beautiful place for people.
Absolutely, we're hoping for three hundred and we're hoping for a lot of the community to you know, community support and and just pretty much just reignite what they had, the success that they've had in the past. And it's kind of called the Red Kettle Kickoff, and so it's going to go into the next phase to get them started for the holidays with the Angel Tree and the red kettles that you're going to see across you know, our community.
Super busy season.
Very very busy season. So we've been planning for a couple months now and it's and just the ball starting to get rolling, and we're really excited about the opportunity to be able to support the Salvation Army and the community involvement in.
Should I be looking for your Facebook page for that for updates on that?
So yes, Facebook posts will probably be out a little later. The first thing we plan to have out is a sponsorship letter sure that our sponsors, perspective donors will see probably at the end of I'm going to say the end of August, first part of September, So be watching for that, but be sure and save that date November seventh, got it, and be a part of that event with.
US Angel Trees coming up right out, Angel.
Trees coming up very soon. We don't have a date for the sign up yet, but it'll be the first part of September. That's where you need to look on Facebook to see where we're posting that date as soon as we know. And just just kind of to wrap things up with with some thoughts here. Needs are greater than ever, you know, the increase that we're seeing in the number of people coming for just basic needs, food, utilities, help with rent, those those are really the things that
we need to help people with right now. So you know, I'm sure everyone gets a solicitation in their mail every so often from the Salvation Army. Just remember us, remember that there are so many people who are just trying really hard to make ends meet.
Right now.
You just got off helping so many people with the bad storms, yes, kind of get back on their feet, and now it's back into the holidays where you know, change of a year, change of everything coming up, and sometimes those changes can just be a big jolt.
Yeah.
Yeah, and it feels good to help other people, it does.
Yeah, that Angel Tree.
Yeah, we participate as a family in that we have everywhere we've been and that's a darn good thing.
You got going on there. It is.
And the thing is, when you participate in it, your heart just sinks, it just sks.
And even the kids they love doing it.
Too, they do.
They always want to help. Yeah, pick one, let's.
Go, let's have some fun, right right, But how can we also lend a little bit of support.
You need volunteers for Angel Tree? Do you need volunteers for the kettles?
Yes, we will.
Let's see.
And what is the sign up for that cattle? I'm gonna have to get that that email? Put that in our story.
Yeah, yeah'll be there.
Because it's I think it's a register to ring is the slogan for signing up online to ring the bell. But yes, we need volunteers to ring the bell every year. And it's funny because you know, some volunteers really really get into it.
Oh some of them, that's their yearly performance.
Yeah.
Yeah, I've seen so many dancing Santas in my day in different towns and different communities, and we ought to have a dancing Santa dance off someday.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I have a good friend who rings and he always takes his lab. He has a lab that he takes a bit of all that lab which has antics and who can refuse that? Yeah, so yeah, ringing the bell?
Now, how can we help on a daily basis?
Can we just drop a little you know, thousand dollars bill.
Offers, Oh yeah, a thousand dollars bill. Or you know, if you're cleaning out your pantry and you've got things that you want to drop off at the at the core for food, that's great too. You know, there's a variety of ways to help, certainly, but when you think about Angel Tree, it's not just kids, it's older adults as well. So we do serve older adults with Angel Tree, and we'd love to have people, you know, be thinking about that.
All right again, the spaghetti dinner is and it's going to be at the Adams.
Church of Christ.
There you get right there by.
The hot, warm and cold. All right, ladies, thanks for being with us today. Thanks for having us Salvation Army right here on K one