Thousand Stories

Food insecurity faces millions of families across the United States, impacting rural and urban communities alike. Hunger, as a symptom of the disease of poverty, has extreme impacts on health outcomes, educational achievement and a family’s ability to achieve upward economic mobility.

In the northeast quadrant of Oklahoma City, the only grocery store closed in the summer of 2019. Prior to this closure, the area was already considered a food desert. Many folks were now forced to take a multi-hour bus ride to reach a grocery option, and the NE OKC community became even more desperate for a solution to dramatic food insecurity.  As the search was on for a solution, community leaders met regularly and a solution was identified as a partnership between a local organization and Homeland Stores, an Oklahoma owned grocery chain.

Opened in April, 2021, the Market at Eastpoint provides a beautiful grocery experience in a community that was lacking appropriate food resources with a ‘Gritty Whole Foods’ vibe. In episode 3, Secretary Brown talks with Bob Ross, the CEO of Inasmuch Foundation and Caylee Dodson & Jonathan Veal, with Restore OKC about community development as a solution to combatting food insecurity.

'Someone should do something about that!'  There are people all across the country 'doing something about that,' and Lynn Johnson, former Assistant Secretary of the Administration for Children & Families in Washington DC joins the podcast to celebrate stories of incredible servants across the country, serving in ways that the public should know about.  

'Housing First' is a nationally recognized model for addressing homelessness.  'Hotel to Housing' was launched during unprecedented cold weather in Tulsa, OK and represents some of the world's best thinking on how to best eliminate homelessness through connecting people to services and building plans for them to lift themselves out of poverty.  

Becky Gligo and Juliana Kitten are nationally recognized experts in addressing homelessness and this project is changing lives daily through selfless service and groundbreaking collaboration.