Rev. Christy Moore, Founder and CEO
Tulsa, Oklahoma
(918) 640-8345
Partner Directory
Opportunity Tulsa
Opportunity Tulsa is a project of StoneSoup Community Venture, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization established in 2010. Our identity springs from the heart of the stone soup folktale, in which community members provide valuable contributions that turn a soup of stone into a nourishing, sustainable meal.
The mission of Opportunity Tulsa is to provide enriching, seed-to-table educational experiences as solutions to hunger and poverty for youth living in at-risk communities in Tulsa. Our objective is to nourish community for a purpose by providing opportunities for youth to obtain solid job and life skills through the learning laboratory operations of a food production garden and our pay-what-you-can community café. The long-range goal is for our garden and café to be fully operated by graduates of our programming who develop a sense of ownership in the operation through their learning experiences at Opportunity Tulsa. The garden will supply fresh, locally-grown food to the café that will function five days per week, serving lunch or dinner to everyone on a pay-what-you-can basis.
Opportunity Tulsa has operated as a pay-what-you-can community café since June 2014. As a member of the One World Everybody Eats organization, we offer hearty, healthy meals with the pay-what-you-can model that is utilized by more than 50 other community cafes across the county. Opportunity Tulsa continues to offer pay-what-you-can cafés at East Side Christian Church and other community locations (check our homepage for upcoming cafes and events). We also collaborate with Job Corps, Street School, Simple Faith Ministries and Spot 31 to include the youth they serve in the training operations of our cafes.
A food production garden begins in spring 2016, in collaboration with Spot 31 at their location of St. Matthew’s United Methodist Church in East Tulsa. Seeds of Hope garden, on the campus of Phillips Theological Seminary, continues to expand with educational offerings and seminary involvement. Garden education events at local schools, mobile garden, and cooking demonstrations at Farmers’ Market venues and Let Us, a program designed to collect excess foods to reduce food waste, round out our garden programming.
Frances Moore Lappe said, “The real cause of hunger is the powerlessness of the poor to gain access to the resources they need to feed themselves.” At Opportunity Tulsa, we recognize that approximately one-third of Tulsa’s citizens do not have the educational background or job skills to earn a salary that would place them squarely in the category of being “self-sufficient.” And another third is at risk of the same. As a result, our purpose is to empower youth with critical job and life skills that move them toward self-sufficient lives. To enhance career readiness, we provide educational and work experiences that:
- Engage in agricultural, culinary, and micro-business learning and work practices
- Strengthen STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) knowledge base
- Develop marketable job skills
- Increase employment and interpersonal life skills
To learn more, visit us at OpportunityTulsa.org, email us at info@opportunitytulsa.org, and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram!
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