BROKEN ARROW NEIGHBORS

The Mission of Broken Arrow Neighbors is to provide services today, to encourage self-sufficiency tomorrow. We achieve this goal through our Mission of providing basic needs assistance with dignity and compassion to neighbors in need through a cooperative community effort. We believe that the Social Services Safety Net can only be effective with multiple community partners including foundations, United Way, area churches/businesses, local schools/government, individuals and others providing emergency assistance and extended services to those in need.

Our Vision: Assistance with Dignity. Serve with Compassion. Empower the Future.

Monday thru Thursday each week we have our client-choice food pantry with our Neighborhood Curb-side Pickup option open for appointments. We moved to creating appointments in 2020, first for safety purposes, but also allowing our clients to be responsible for their appointment time to come up here and receive their groceries. In addition to our food pantry, we offer financial assistance (utilities, rent, prescriptions and transportation), our holiday assistance program, Joy for your Neighbors, and our newest program, Jump Start. This job mentorship program allows us to meet our clients where they are at in their lives, help them overcome any barriers to finding gainful employment and help them end the generational need for our services.

Our Outreach services include taking fresh produce from our 25 Feeding America partners to low and fixed income senior living facilities in our area once a week. We have also partnered with our local Senior Activity Center to offer a "need one, take one" bag of groceries to help them until they can come to BA Neighbors for an appointment.

In 2021 we implemented a new online database, AssistOK at BA Neighbors. This has allowed us to collaborate with 5 of the other largest basic needs agencies in our area. Their information is in one place, we can make sure we are serving them to the best of our abilities, while also making sure no overlap is happening in funding services.
We have also expanded our service area to Coweta, OK in 2020 to make sure there is not a gap in services for our clients who may live in a very close, but rural area of the Broken Arrow community.
In the past several years we have also expanded our staff team from 3 to 6.5 currently. We have seen tremendous growth in not only need in our area, but the amount of food we are able to pick up weekly. We went from 14 to 25 Feeding America partners in just 2 years, which is a total of 52 individual pickups each week. This allows us to serve more fresh fruits and vegetables, take more to our Outreach client, and have amazing partnerships in the community as well.

By creating new programs, expanding our services, offering more fresh options instead of just shelf-stable items, and by having our dietary restrictions shelf (offering gluten-free, sugar-free, nut-free and dairy-free options), we are serving our clients not only with dignity, but with compassion and respect.

Allowing self-sufficiency and some responsibility on their part for our appointment based system, while also giving them not only a hand out, but a hand up and out of the "system" with our Jump Start program, we hope to see the generational need of our organization diminish. We will always be here to offer emergency basic needs, but encourage a way out as well.