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At Growing Together Tulsa, we strive to eliminate inequalities that stand in the way for families in vulnerable neighborhoods to succeed.
Working alongside community members in Tulsa to create the conditions that we all want for our own kids: great schools; quality, affordable housing; safe and amenity-rich public spaces, and are invested in the economic development and vibrancy of the community.
Growing Together is a licensed partner of the national evidence-based Communities In Schools (CIS) organization. The CIS program serves students and families in ten Tulsa public schools that are economically disadvantaged: Eugene Field Elementary School, Kendall-Whittier Elementary School, Will Rogers College Middle School, Will Rogers College High School, Sequoyah Elementary School, Daniel Webster Middle School, Daniel Webster High School, Dolores Huerta Elementary School, Cooper Elementary School, and East Central Middle School. Each school site has a dedicated CIS site coordinator. CIS staff work with students and families to develop support plans that target academics, attendance, behavior, parent involvement, healthcare access, and material assistance.
This new initiative is referred to as the Growing Together Community Schools Partnership (GTCSP). This project will allow for three schools previously being served through the Growing Together CIS program to transition into full-service community schools.
Additionally, Growing Together was awarded a contract with the Oklahoma Department of Health and Human Services TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) to expand CIS services into three East Tulsa schools (Dolores Huerta Elementary School, Cooper Elementary School, and East Central Middle School). The expansion will allow for a CIS Site Coordinator to be employed at each site to support students.
Growing Together is increasing the bandwidth of the CIS program after being awarded a U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Elementary and Secondary Education’s Full-Service Community Schools Program grant in 2022. This grant allows Growing Together to deepen services at Kendall-Whittier, Sequoyah, and Rogers schools and will allow for enhanced programming in four areas:
GTCSP will not only allow for more streamlined, strategic coordination of services and partnerships but throughout the five-year grant, will build the capacity of educators, families, and community members to work collaboratively toward shared ownership of student success.
During the 2022/23 school year, Growing Together rebranded and expanded its education initiative, introducing the Growing Together Community School Project
Growing Together
Growing Together is actively enhancing the Kendall-Whittier neighborhood through diverse, collaborative initiatives that address barriers, promote equity, and foster a vibrant community. Their comprehensive approach encompasses youth programs, leadership development, health education, and community engagement, all aligned with broader goals of improving education and housing.
In 2015, Growing Together and the Kendall-Whittier community partnered with the national organization Purpose Built Communities to implement proven poverty solution strategies through comprehensive neighborhood revitalization in the Kendall-Whittier community, creating a durable solution for families to exit poverty.
Purpose Built Communities is an evidence-based approach that works to mitigate or eliminate intergenerational poverty and create thriving neighborhoods. Research suggests this model can break the cycle of intergenerational poverty in one generation. This result indicates that neighborhoods in decline face deeply rooted issues: intergenerational poverty, crime, health care issues, underperforming schools, and unsafe environments.
In 2019, Purpose Built Communities, in collaboration with Harvard’s Center on the Developing Child, published research in sociology, economics, and related fields that show intergenerational urban poverty is intrinsically linked to neighborhoods. This finding recognizes that the root cause of intergenerational urban poverty – the exposure of children to sources of toxic stress – can be eliminated by transforming distressed neighborhoods into healthy neighborhoods that are self-sustaining, durable, and produce young adults who can succeed and thrive.
Growing Together is currently the only Purpose Built Communities network member in Oklahoma.
~ Growing Together Tulsa
Using a three-pronged approach of community quarterbacking, community mobilization, and direct implementation, Growing Together drives place-based revitalization of the Kendall-Whittier neighborhood through its three primary program areas:
Growing Together is actively promoting inclusive economic development in Kendall-Whittier through partnerships, support for underrepresented entrepreneurs, and policies that ensure community-wide benefits. Their approach focuses on creating accessible growth opportunities and maintaining a vibrant economic landscape for all residents and businesses.
Growing Together mobilizes the Latino community of Kendall-Whittier to address the lack of Latino representation in local public spaces. Growing Together founded the Community Leadership Institute (CLI) to address the lack of Latino representation and collectively work toward a vision for the Kendall-Whittier Latino community.
The CLI engages with Latino community members to advance their advocacy in public and community spaces to accelerate positive change in Kendall-Whittier. Through the CLI program, participants from this historically underrepresented community gain skills, resources, and networks to become community leaders in public spaces. The CLI creates leadership teams that impact services and opportunities for neighborhood families. Leadership teams are divided into different cohorts and contribute to community engagement forums hosted by the CLI.
The core of the CLI is a cohort-based training program for parents and guardians of students at local schools to obtain the technical skills, resources, and networking connections necessary to become active leaders and advocates in their community. The CLI program interacts with clients through eight weekly cohort sessions and periodic check-ins as participants implement their projects and seek guidance from program staff as needed.
In addition, cohort members engage in a community project to utilize the skills, resources, and networks they gain through the program. Growing Together staff members connect cohort members to networks and resources and provide institutional knowledge to help them achieve their project and personal leadership goals.
Growing Together hosts Cafe en Comunidad at the Pancho Anaya bakery monthly during the school year. This program is accessible to parents of children in Kendall-Whittier schools and interested residents of the Kendall-Whittier neighborhood. Local service and resource providers are invited to share resources with attendees and get to know parents and community residents.
Coffee with Parents is an essential space for community members to engage with each other. In these sessions, CLI participants can build relationships with other residents and generate community-wide investment in the local initiatives and advocacy efforts they are involved in. Coffee With Parents serves around 300 people annually, averaging 30 attendees per session, which runs monthly for 10 months out of each calendar year.
The CLI measures the number of leaders who successfully graduate and complete a capstone project and the number of graduates plugged into leadership positions within the community. GT tracks program participation data and conducts surveys to qualitatively and quantitatively measure the CLI’s success. Participants self-report on various indicators that can point to goals and outcomes. Program success is based on short- and long-term increases in utilization of local resources via Cafe en Comunidad and increased civic participation and public representation on the neighborhood and local levels.
Avanzando Juntos, initially launched and incubated by Growing Together, is now an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization providing startup capital to aspiring Latino entrepreneurs and small business owners in Tulsa.
The organization focuses on serving the Latino community, including immigrants and Spanish-speaking business owners, by addressing barriers of language, culture, and conventional lending that have impeded small business growth.
Avanzando Juntos emerged as a response to the disparities in accessing relief capital during the COVID-19 pandemic, highlighting the ongoing effects of systemic racial wealth gaps and lack of financial resources for Latino businesses.
Coffee with Parents is an essential space for community members to engage with each other. In these sessions, CLI participants can build relationships with other residents and generate community-wide investment in the local initiatives and advocacy efforts they are involved in.
~ Growing Together Tulsa
In Kendall-Whittier, Growing Together is dedicated to enhancing the community through the development of mixed-income housing that supports inclusive growth. Our goal, in collaboration with our partners, is to introduce 300 additional housing units into the neighborhood. This initiative includes a diverse mix of multi-family and single-family homes, blending market-rate and affordable options, and incorporating both new constructions and rehabilitated properties. By actively participating in the development of these units, Growing Together is ensuring that our housing efforts are deeply integrated into the broader vision for a vibrant, equitable Kendall-Whittier.
Housing is essential to a family’s financial security, health and wellness, and their sense of safety and belonging. Access to safe, permanently affordable housing in a mixed-income neighborhood is foundational to Growing Together’s goal of building equity and inclusive growth.
Growing Together works to support new mixed-income housing and commercial development that ensures economically diverse families live and invest in neighborhood schools and the community.
Kendall-Whittier families need feasible pathways to homeownership or permanently affordable rental housing, which helps them build intergenerational wealth and stay rooted within their communities. Growing Together developed the Kendall-Whittier Neighborhood Trust in response to this critical need.
Growing Together fills a community-identified gap in housing, ensuring sustainable, affordable, high-quality rental housing by acting as fiscal agent of the Kendall-Whittier Neighborhood Trust to provide and manage affordable housing and engage local and state decision-makers to enact equitable development policies.
Access to safe, permanently affordable housing in a mixed-income neighborhood is foundational to Growing Together’s goal of building equity and inclusive growth.
~ Growing Together Tulsa
The Kendall-Whittier Neighborhood Trust’s (KWNT) portfolio has grown to 35 units,
including 12 homes acquired with renters. GT has retained most of these tenants in their homes, with only one out of seven renters choosing to leave a residence. The rent for these
homes is dramatically lower than the market rate, providing affordable housing to Kendall-Whittier residents and encouraging neighborhood retention. GT is raising funds for phase 3 of its work, bringing the organization to 60-70 units over the next several years.
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