You may have seen the flyers that are occasionallyinserted into our clients’ grocery sacks. They could beinstructions on how to cook dry beans, or tips forbudgeting. These materials come from a greatpartnership between CCEOK and the OSU ExtensionTulsa County Family and Consumer Sciences (FCS)Office .

The Family and Consumer Sciences Department’sremit is anything that affects a family or an individual –for example: mental health, nutrition, parenting,finances, and opioid awareness and prevention. OSU Extension also offers youth development through 4-H, Horticulture (one such program is theMaster Gardener Program) and Agriculture.

Michelle Bonicelli is the Tulsa County Family andConsumer Sciences Educator who connected withCatholic Charities last year about ways to get theirhelpful information and recipes into the hands of ourclients. When the COVID pandemic shut mostperson-to-person activities down, the OSU Extensionoffice pivoted from a model based on in-persontraining to the distribution of free, educationalresources via printed materials to Food Bankagencies such as CCEOK.

The information supplied by OSU is research basedand opinion free. It has been vetted for safety and isproven – it isn’t your grandmother’s recipe for peachcobbler, for example.

FOOD FOR THOUGHTOctober 2021

CATHOLIC CHARITIES OF EASTERN OKLAHOMA

OSU EXTENSION SERVICESOFFERED TO CCEOK CLIENTS

Surviving and Thriving with Family Duringthe COVID-19 Crisis Helping Children Learn Good MoneyHabits Resilience: A Powerful Weapon in theFight Against ACEs (Adverse ChildhoodExperiences), and our favorite, Dry Beans - The Perfect Staple

In 2020 and again for this year, the officeprovided our clients with information on howto prepare a turkey dinner. Over the months,we’ve also given out their flyers on how tobetter manage finances or make better use ofthe money they do have – like how to savemoney on back-to-school shopping, forexample. These materials are currentlyavailable in English only.

Other covered topics included:

for Every Pantry

If you would like to volunteer to engage withthe Extension office and coordinate theacquisition and dissemination of Extension-provided materials to Catholic Charities’clients as part of the new Market at CatholicCharities, please email Angie Gallant in thevolunteer office at avegagallant@cceok.org

During pantry opening hours, most ofus would never get the opportunityto interact with Susan unless wewere onsite about 45 minutes beforeopening time or had stayed aroundfor lunch after we had closed. Susanarrives before starting time, gathersher hat, water bottle (take it fromthis writer – don’t mess with thatwater bottle), clipboard, pen, andmarker, and heads out to the line ofclients already waiting to receivefood. She’ll remain out on the street,interacting with clients as she’sgathering the information we needfrom them. If it's really hot, she maywork where she can find shade, butshe’ll stay out on the line until thepantry stops taking in clients.

Before she came to the food pantry,Susan’s career was spent teaching.Graduating with a BA from OU, shewent to work first in retail at awomen’s clothing store inAlbuquerque. Discovering she didn’tlike that line of work, she went backto school to get a teaching certificatefrom NSU in Tahlequah. As an aside,Gable Field at NSU's Doc WadleyStadium is named after her great-grandfather, George Warren Gable,who when the President of NSUacquired the land for the stadium.

She taught business classes to highschoolers for more than 25 years inboth Broken Arrow and Bixby publicschools. At each school, she used atwo-year DECA program preparingstudents for careers in marketing,finance, hospitality, and management,giving students a leg up for futurecareers. She eventually retired inMay 2018.

In retirement, she accompaniedher traveling nurse husband,Joe, for a time on his variousassignments around thecountry. After returning toTulsa, she saw an ad or abrochure from the CCEOK foodpantry, and decided she’d comeout and give it a try. She startedin March of 2020, right afterCOVID hit, loading food fromgrocery carts into clients’ cars.On her second day, sheaccompanied another volunteerout to collect names andrealized that was a job shecould really love. Since thatspring, through all the hot, coldand sometimes very wetweather, Susan has stayed outon the line. That assignment(and you can ask anyone who’sdone it for any length of time) isharder than it sounds. There’sthe language barrier, manydifferent ID types, long,sometimes really long names,

indistinct home addresses, andconfusion over what is income.Susan loves interacting withclients. She knows many clientsby name and circumstance. Shemanages her client interactionswith humor and sometimes ahearty laugh.

Susan loves being outside,baseball games, camping, her newgrandbaby, and traveling aroundthe country. She and Joe plan tostart traveling again when Joeretires. Alaska, whales, bears, andthe Aurora Borealis are all in herfuture, but we hope she finds thetime to continue her work here atthe pantry until then.

Can you figure outwhich is the lie?

LINDSEY VONN: I worked at a Crested Butte mountaintopwarming hut slinging chili 6 days a week so I could ski onthe 7th – taking a semester "break" from college.

DELANEY SCHNELL: I can execute a back flip off a diving board.

JOAN JOYCE: After getting hit by a baseball, I got a freebeer, then got to throw out the first pitch in the nextgame of a double header.

The answers will be in the next newsletter!

Susan Gable-Krebsbach

STAFF SPOTLIGHT:

2 TRUTHS& A LIE

Answers to Barbara Bird’s Two Truths and a Lie: Barbara did NOTqualify for or play in the LPGA.

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