ALA Tulsa supports ALA’s mission of representing professional legal management and managers to the legal community and to the community at large.

ALA Tulsa members, business partners and family participated in “planting, preserving and promoting Tulsa’s urban forest” with Up With Trees on a beautiful Saturday morning, October 15.  The organization’s message:  Tree by tree, you can help grow Tulsa’s urban forest. Every tree planted in Tulsa not only makes our community more beautiful, it makes it more livable. Join Up With Trees, Tulsa’s non-profit urban forestry leader, and leave a green legacy for future generations.

“With the generous support of donors, we plant along streets and trails, in parks, schools, fire stations, neighborhoods, and many other public properties.  Our mission is to beautify greater Tulsa by planting trees and to create urban forestry awareness.”  For more than 30 years, Up With Trees has beautified Tulsa one tree at a time.  Bck in 1976, Tulsa faced a serious problem. After close to 80 years of growth and progress, the city’s urban forest was shrinking.  Development, storms and disease had taken a toll. Experts estimated that Tulsa’s urban forest was 200,000 trees short.

The issue came to a head in 1974 when 51st Street was being widened. A high school student called then-Streets Commissioner Sid Patterson and asked what the city was doing to replace the trees lost during the project. In fact, the city was doing little. In Tulsa’s energy-driven economy, times were hard and there were no funds available for trees, let alone the labor to plant and maintain them.

Patterson mulled over the challenge made by the teenage activist. Indeed, citizens of Tulsa should be concerned about their environment and trees are an important part of nature’s ecosystem. But where to find the funds and labor to accomplish the task?  The street commissioner organized groups of Tulsa Garden Club members, landscape architects and representatives from several civic groups. The problem was discussed and plans formulated. In 1976, Up With Trees was born.

To help those in need tackle their everyday challenges, the Association of Legal Administrators (ALA) created its Community Challenge Weekend (CCW) program in 1999. The mission of CCW is to encourage ALA chapters, its members, firms, vendors, relatives and friends to come together to contribute time, energy and resources toward improving their own communities.

Phase 1

Collection and donation of professional attire to Dress for Success.
Dress for Success promotes the economic independence of disadvantaged women by providing professional attire, a network of support and the career development tools to help women thrive in work and in life. Dress for Success is an international not-for-profit organization offering services designed to help women find jobs and remain employed. Each Dress for Success client receives one suit when she has a job interview and can return for a second suit or separates when she finds work.

Phase 2

Collection and donation of non-perishable food items to the Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma.

According to the USDA, Oklahoma ranks fourth in the nation in “very low food security,” and sixth in “food insecurity”. Food insecurity means that at times during the year a household has difficulty providing enough food for all its members due to lack of resources. Chapter members and business partners are invited to participate by collecting non-perishable food items and in packaging the food for distribution on October 9, 2010 from 9:00 – 11:00 a.m. at the Food Bank.

On a beautiful fall day, more than fifteen Tulsa legal administrators, business partners and guests joined Tulsa’s Habitat for Humanity in beginning a new house build.  We began with a “clean slate,” a freshly poured foundation with no walls.

Our job was simple, erect all of the exterior and interior walls before we left for the day.  By 1:00 p.m. the project was completed, the walls were up, and many parts of our bodies were sore.

But, the joy of helping those in need, working with and building deeper friendships, made it all worth while.  What will be in store for next year?

What happens when one gathers 20 ALA members, vendors, family members and vinyl siding? A lot of teamwork and fun! On the windy morning of Saturday, November 8, we met at a north Tulsa location where 4 houses were being completed in time for the families to move in before Thanksgiving. Our mission – to install vinyl siding on all four of the sheds – and to make it tougher – the siding had to match the color of each house!

I don’t know about you but I have never installed siding before but thanks to the teamwork and a little guidance from the contractor we completed the project by 1:00 that day with no major injuries to boot! Albeit, I had a hard time getting out of bed the next day but I believe fun was had by all and several of us have learned a new skill or two.

Some noteworthy comments received were as follows: A worthy and productive project. Thank you for inviting us. I sure had a good time doing it- never have done siding myself, so that was an experience! Always fun to watch the dynamics on group projects! Our office had a wonderful time and we all enjoyed it as well! We all kicked butt! It was FUN!!! I did enjoy the project and have the added knowledge that we could side a house in a pinch!

Julee Thomas, 2008 ALA Tulsa Community Outreach Chair

In 2008, as part of the 10th anniversary of Community Challenge Weekend (CCW), ALA celebrated this milestone by undertaking a special one-time organizational effort to help make a difference in the lives of children around the world. For this commitment, we were asked to support The Smile Train, an international charity whose mission is to provide free surgeries to thousands of children who suffer from cleft lips and palates.

Clefts are a major problem in developing countries. Most children with unrepaired clefts cannot eat or speak properly, aren’t allowed to attend school or hold a job, and face very difficult lives filled with shame and isolation, pain, and heartache.

Since 2000, The Smile Train has provided this important surgery for more than 350,000 children who would otherwise never receive it. (The average age of a Smile Train patient is 6 years old.) The organization also has helped train over 23,000 medical professionals and has established programs and partners in 76 countries.

While one might think that these surgeries are expensive and take a lot or time … that is not the case. Cleft repair surgery is relatively inexpensive to perform (as little as $250) and takes as little as 45 minutes. That’s all it takes to give a desperate child not just a new smile, but a new life.

The Tulsa Chapter participated by selling Montag Candles (Montag being a local Tulsa area vendor) during the holidays. Through the efforts of several firms, we are sending Smile Train a check in the amount of $1,422.84 which will help change the lives of 6 children as they receive corrective surgery for their “smiles”. Thanks to all the firms that participated by selling candles.

Every year, ALA Tulsa adopts families at Christmas. These families are typically chosen through a school-related situation. We provide support to families who find themselves in difficult situations during the holidays by shopping for, wrapping and delivering Christmas presents.

The Tulsa ALA Chapter chose to provide a fall festival for the children of the Laura Dester Center (Department of Human Services), which is a 24-hour stopping point between troubled homes and foster care. For Halloween, we provided an avenue for them to create decorations while providing some camaraderie with our members and their peers by providing several games and a photo opp! We set up craft areas for the children’s involvement.

Craft stations offered Dryer Sheet Ghosts & Cat Bags, Halloween Banners, Q-tip Skeletons, Sparkling Spiders, Pumpkin Garland, Wooden Cats and Jack-o-lantern painting and Pumpkin and Cookie Decorating. One of our members owns a Harley Davidson motorcycle which he brought and allowed the children to have their pictures taken on or with.

ALA Tulsa was grateful to our partnering business partners and law firms for their assistance in making the 5th grade graduation day at Anderson Elementary a tremendous success. The ceremony took place on June 9th in the school auditorium and our own Andrea Everage was one of the featured speakers. Thanks to the financial support of our chapter and the generosity of our business partners and law firms, each student received a personalized engraved medallion as well as an ALA tote bag (graciously provided by ALA headquarters) containing candy, educational supplies and dental hygiene items. The students, faculty, parents and guests were treated to cake and punch following the ceremony.

Operation “Welcome to Tulsa” – ALA Tulsa once again joined with other ALA chapters across the U.S. and around the world and participated in ALA’s annual Community Challenge Weekend.  In the past, we have been involved in a variety of activities; yard work for the elderly, collecting “HUGS” (hats, underwear, gloves and socks) for school children and various projects at Anderson Elementary including last year’s project of painting a mural.  This year’s project, Operation “Welcome to Tulsa” supported victims of Hurricane Katrina.

With the devastation left by the hurricanes so prevalent on all of our minds, the goal of the Community Outreach Committee was to help welcome, through emotional, financial and physical support, displaced families into the Tulsa community.  The committee selected two families and provided them with warm clothing, cleaning supplies, a computer, furniture and a gift certificate for other needed household items as well as an ear to listen when needed.  Although still undecided as to whether or not Tulsa will remain their permanent home, both families have expressed their gratitude and amazement at all of the help from ALA Tulsa and support from the entire Tulsa community.

ALA Tulsa received a letter and certificate for its participation in ALA’s 7th Annual Community Challenge Weekend – October 2005.