Good morning, good morning morning, and welcome, welcome, welcome. If we can all scooched into the into the camera just a little bit, that'd be great. There we go. We got all the bright spiley faces here today. Oh my goodness, akes, Hi, I'm Tom and in his time now for our community connection right here on K one, the one you trust. And my goodness, akes, we got a house full today. And boy, we're gonna have a little bit fun talking about the west Side
Community Center. And uh boy, oh boy, oh boy, we have a big celebration coming up. Shirley, tell us what's going go ahead, I would love to tell you what's going on. First of all, the introduce yoursel. Yes, my name is Shavan Ogless. I am the new executive director of the Westside Community Center. And I am super excited because after a brief closure this Saturday, June fifteenth, from four to eight pm, we're having our June teen celebration and grand reopening. Nice. Now, how
fun is this? What's to be going on? What do we expect? So many great things. We are gonna have free food, We're gonna have prizes, We're gonna have a dunk tank, We're gonna have a inflatable kid zone. We're gonna have face painting. We're our very own Drew here, who is ten years old painting faces. You're gonna have too much fun. Yes, he was out at sunfestis past weekend and he just had a blast doing it. But we have so many great things going on with that.
And then we have been surely here because we are going to have voter registration for tribal members. We're part of Cherokee Nation. You can tell us a little bit about how this is going to work. Well, So the tribal we have very low voter registrations, and so we thought that we would find all the freedoms out there that was not voted yet and to get registered because they think because they are a member that they're already registered to vote. Just
because your memory, you have to have registration. So at this time when we can registration for both, oh great. So I'm really looking forward to that and working with so you can mix a little fun with business, right, business with fun. Yes, that way, it doesn't feel like you're going I gotta go registered. It's like, hey, I can register the vote while I'm having them all. Absolutely, you get to register the vote while you are enjoying free food and games and prizes. We're gonna have cake
walks and one of the funnest things that I'm so excited about. Or we're gonna have a little mini car show with corvettes ranging from classic corvettes to some of your newest corvettes that are going to be there as well. Take my breath away. I'm a car officionado. My dad had a Corvette when I was a kid, and I've been going to car shows with him all my life. So I tell kids of all ages, even grown kids who love
to see cars, please come out. There's so many things to come and see and do and have fun and just celebrate the west Side Community Center reopening and learn about all the wonderful programs and initiatives that we have coming up as well. Now this has got to be from four to eight on Saturday at the west Side the Community Center. Now you've been running it now for two whole weeks, I mean two whole weeks, and the first time, let's
have a party. The first thing was let's have a celebration and a grand reopening. And so I just want to commend each and every volunteer from the community has stepped up. The West Side Community Center has impacted so many people over its eighty years of being an exait yes in Bartlesville. Yes, And so people came from all over just to make this event happen. And so
two weeks we were able to have this June teenth and grand reopening. That's a testament to just our volunteers and the impact that it's had within the community. Well it is you know, I will tell you the West Side communities that probably saved a lot of lives. I remember a couple of years ago, we had a colt snap that was just ferocious and it wouldn't let up, and it warmed up and it took it like a week and a half
for things to warm up. And they took in people and they turned that into a warming center and I and I think I remember how it went. Not sure how we're going to do this, but we're going to do this. We're going to do it, and they did, and they did and they did well. And also this has been a place of celebration for a good long time and many over many many years. And it's a good place for recreation too for the kids because you're always gotta find kids there. It's
busy, absolutely when we have after school programs. We're going to have like a summer fine arts program, robotics, We're going to have a game room. We have so many great things for the kids to do. There so many initiatives for the kids. Yeah, so you talk about art and stuff like that, you're gonna be teaching a painting class there on face. I don't know, you don't know, Yeah, yeah, check on that.
You may have been volunteered. Well, and they both painted faces. We have Drew who's ten, we have Mia who's fifteen, and they were both painting faces. Even though at SunFest and so both of them when they came in they were a little a little unsure of how they're how they're face painting skills were. By the end of that time, we had kids that were and happy with just with all the different creations that they made for them. Well, I thought that was a master class going on there, because I
was there the whole weekend. There are hardly anybody under the age of town that didn't have a painted face. It's very much so, very much so. So some of those beautiful drawings came right from our arya and they're going to be there on Saturday, June fifteenth. We're going to have a big celebration there for the grand reopening, and of course for travel members of Cherokee Nation, you can register to vote while you having fun. You might be
having fun and registering at the same time. I've seen it done before, I think so. And at six pm we will have a presentation for those people who may be driven by the Westside Community Center wonder what was going on. At six pm we'll have a presentation by myself and our board of directors. We're just going to let the community know what the future is at the west Side, all the different great programs we have for kids, for members,
and also how volunteers can get involved. And we're also open for donations as well. You know, I've seen positivity before, but I haven't seen so much positivity and concentrated in one room like this in a law long time. And I'm old, you know. So the kids are happy, you guys are bubbling. Everybody's ready to go. The weekend's just about here. I mean it's Wednesdays. Some people have already kind of mentally checked out, I know, And so this is going to be a great one too.
And the weather's going to be great. I'm looking at it on Saturday, gonna be mostly sunny. You want to worry about rain, you want to worry about tornadoes, no hail. Yes, So we're gonna have some sunshine and some fun. Absolutely. And what's the cost. It is free for everyone to come out, free food, and we have prizes, cakes, silent auctions. I mean, there's going to be so much stuff for people
to do that you don't want to miss it. Do you have a Facebook page that people can check in case they kind of like forget you know, you heard about it, I want to know more. Yes, it is w CC Bartlesville. So if you go to Facebook dot com backslash w CC Bartlesville you will find us. We're gonna find some of the silent auction things on there, you think you Yes, we were posted. If it's not on today, If it's not on there right now, it will be later
today. Oh great, that's going to be wonderful. All the things that they can do, the silent auction items, the different people that are going to be there. I mean, yeah, it's ready to overwhelm you. What fun you're you're coming in on this. You know, a day after pay day, plannings everything. You know what I'm saying. I didn't know that, So that makes it festivities even better. Oh yeah, it's been free even after pay day. Go money. Well we're talking to silent auction.
That's true silent auction. And then you know we're always open for donations. Yeah yeah, I get turn that away. If somebody's got like ten thousand dollars in the pocket, can you put this to good use? We would put it to great use. I bet you would, absolutely. Oh man, this is this is something else. So we've got the voter registration for the tribal members. We've got a big Old g teenth celebration coming up here, and it's all at the West Side Community Center. It's the reopening
after that brief closure. And yeah, folks were asking what's going on because they've cars and and they thought it was closed well temporarily, and now it's opening reborn. It's reborn, and that's what we want people to come see. We are rising from the ashes and in a great positive way. Well I'll tell you what. I at buy your enthusiasm. If you could bottle that, I'd buy case I need some enthusiasm. Some days I'm sitting here going like, how do they do that? You know? But that's wonderful.
So if this is just a sample of the fun that we're going to have on Saturday, everybody put it on the calendar. Let's go four o'clock. Be there. Put it on your dance and shoes or dentis shoes or flip flops or whatever you don't you put on your dance and shoes. We'll have a live DJ outside and we'll have actually like live music inside. So we have our local pastors, Pastor David Stroup who's going to be playing the organ inside. We have Greater First Baptist that's gonna come and sing. I
think we have some great things that are happening inside as well. Yes, I mean, whatever you want, we have it. It's the place to be. I'm telling you, you didn't miss said beat. We didn't miss a beat. This is pretty good for two weeks in business. You know, folks are going to be paying a lot of attention to you now. I'm just saying it, saying I want to thank you for coming in and that are you going to be painting at the at the festival? Maybe maybe
you have to ask permission. I guess she has multiple things. She's going to be running all kinds of things that day, so painting faces, she's going to be selling t shirts. I mean, we've got her busy. How to start him young and learn to teach about commerce, communication, all of that great stuff and interpersonal relationships. Absolutely, my gosh, this is great. I like to add the address is five for one South Bucy, Yes and those who want to know. And it's also right across the street
from Magafy Mission. It is it is. I keep seeing it out there in like this big old green open space with basketball courts and the building and everything, and usually I smell some food cooking, but when I've been by, but yeah, that's exactly where it is. It is. But I usually just follow the fun, and that's where it's. Follow the fun. Like we said, five on oneself UC Avenue. You can catch us online at Wccbartlesville dot org to learn more about what we have going on and all
the great things we have coming up as well. Okay, great, this is going to be wonderful. Follow them on the Facebook. We're gonna have a little news story on this here in just a little bit as well, and of course we will you can always take home with you the video that you've been watching that's going to be on Facebook Live for a good long time. And also you know, we'll just keep in touch. We're going to
have you in here pretty much on the often. All right. I've love that we always have great stuff to share to get the community excited about. Well, this is where we share right here on Community Connection. All right, absolutely, thank you. You've got to come back to all right, sure are you coming back? All right? Over there? It is smile makes up for it absolutely. But I also like to say we will not be turned away the homes that area is that you filtered with homeless people and
they will be accepted. Absolutely, I don't want that makes that very good and they will be fair. So when you say it's open everybody, you mean everyone. That's great. We are Bartlesville is a multicultural hub and resource center and we want everyone to come check us out this weekend to find out why. I like that. Yes, so you've got to come out and you got to do you got to do your homework and have fun. Absolutely absolutely, So that will be when they accept memberships there to be paid.
They will also be given a free T shirt. Absolutely wow, that's cool. All right, well, I want to thank you all for being here today and being with us on our community Connection