And I serve as the chair of the Tulsa Women's Commission.

And this is what we love to see.

Thank you all for coming to our meeting.

We have a really amazing treat.

Um, I'm going to hear from the incredible Alison Anthony and Melanie Polter from the Tulsa Area United Way.

But first, we've got to call our meeting to order.

So let's go ahead and do that.

And the first order of business is that we need to approve our minutes.

I need a motion to approve our if you can take a second to look over those, and then when you feel comfortable, I'll accept a motion to approve the minutes.

My motion to approve the minutes.

Okay, we have a first.

All right, and second from first was from Commissioner Morgan, second from Commissioner Bent.

Um, all right.

Um, all right.

Well, I'm just not even going to delay at all.

Um, Flora, do you want to vote?

Oh, yeah, we gotta vote.

Okay.

I just have high hopes it'll pass, but all in favor, say aye.

Aye, any opposed?

Any abstentions?

All right, it passes.

All right, I want to shout out the incredible work of our um multiple commissioners.

Um, Commissioner Bruno Todd, who leads the uh leadership Tulsa, um hosted an event.

Leadership Tulsa hosted the women's leadership summit.

Um, and we think that some of you may be here because of the leadership summit.

We presented about the work of the Tulsa Women's Commission, and we welcome you with full hearts.

We're so glad that you're here today, and so glad to be featuring the Tulsa Area United Way and the Alice um research.

And so I just want to we're just gonna dive right into it and want to welcome the incredible Allison Anthony, who serves as the president and CEO of Tulsa Area United Way, and Melanie Poulter, who serves as the Director of Research and Data at the Tulsa Area United Way to share with us about Alice.

So without further ado, let's welcome Alison Anthony.

And by the way, your commissioners, Edwards and Lata, did an incredible job at the Women's Leadership Summit and represented this so well, so much great data.

So thank you.

I'm proudly wearing my uh Deputy Reyes, Deputy Mayor Reyes bestowed upon me this pin for the cabinet of children, youth, and families, and I am incredibly grateful for uh the work that this mayor and his administration is leaning into to remove barriers for family prosperity.

It's gonna be really hard.

I'm gonna warn you, it's gonna be really hard for me to stay behind this microphone because usually I'm moving all around, but we're told that this is part of the video, so I'm gonna stay here.

I am um so honored to do the work of Tulsa Area United Way in this community just as a as a brief overview.

We really lean into the pillars of helping people have access to health care and healthy food.

We're uh focused on youth opportunities so that when kids graduate and walk across that stage, they have many life opportunities ahead of them and that their families can celebrate them for whatever is next.

We really focus on family and financial stability, which is what we're really going to be talking about today, which you know, job training, removing those those limitations that people might not might not even know what's available.

So we want to make sure that that information is out there and that we're supporting programs to do that, and then finally, community resiliency.

So, like on the worst day of someone's life that they know who to call and that they know how to get help, and that's why we have 211 of Eastern Oklahoma across 37 counties, Oklahoma City uh Heartline has the other half of the state.

But just last year alone, 264,000 times someone reached out and says, I don't know where to turn for help.

The community resiliency is that 211 is there to direct them, and we applaud the courage of people that reach out to ask for help.

So that's why we raise all of those things and more.

I'm looking at my friend Mimi and my friend Tanil and at Family and Children's Services.

It's why we raise over 26 million dollars every year to fund 160 great programs.

One of my favorites right now is MODIS, who's doing some incredible work in transportation.

And I'm calling Justice out in particular because she said she was intimidated to be on the elevator with me.

So I'm like, I'm not.

I'm not intimidated.

MODIS is doing a great innovation grant for us right now at Tulsa Area United Way where they're taking kids from East Central High School who have technical skills training to the Port of Catusa where there are jobs, but they couldn't get there.

That's just a smart idea, and we love it.

So that's why we're doing this work, and that is why I am so honored to join you all in the efforts that you're doing around the for the for the mayor's commission on women.

And when you think about the work you've done over the past few years on the pay equity pledge, United Way's a signatory on that, on uh on child care access, and I want to just tell you something.

When I saw that report, I said, Dr.

Latta, who did this work for you?

Who was the consultant?

And she's like, Oh, we just did it.

I'm like, but you also have full-time jobs, and you also have little bitty children, you know, and so the women in this room that are doing this work are lifting others as they climb, in the words of Mary McLeod Bethune, and you were doing the work, you feel it in your own home, but you're doing the work for others who may not have a voice around this table.

So thank you so much for that.

And thank you for each of the commissioners for doing that work over the past few years.

It's just simply incredible.

The ability to earn a living wage in our families in our community, for the well-being of our children, our workforce, our schools, is just critical to having a thriving community for all of us.

And so that's why we are working together.

We have a pillar in our second century strategy that is called United for Working Families, and we're really focused on grounding in the data that connects us.

The beautiful Marcia Bruno Todd gave me that title, so I love the data that connects us.

And in fact, uh, when one of the people introduced me afterwards, they just called me Alice.

So I'm just thinking about branding.

I mean, I could brand myself, right?

Alice and just drop the ON, and it'll be fine.

But um, we're we've got so much work to do, and I'll just give one statistic that that breaks my heart.

Oklahoma's ranked 48th nationally for child care affordability, and many are paying upwards of 35% of their income on child care, and that's seven recommendation is around seven percent.

So that's why Annie and Melanie and I, you can see have been all over the state of Oklahoma over these guys mainly, have done over 40 presentations so far.

Uh, including, I will tell you, because if you know him, give him a shout out.

Governor Bill Anitubby of the Chickasaw Nation asked us to come present to 340 directors and above of the Chickasaw Nation because he wanted them to understand how their work is making a difference in their community, and so there's just some great energy around this in the community.

After a quick uh overview of what is Alice, you'll hear from Melanie, and she's gonna do a deep dive on the work because that's where we get into the solutions that we can build on.

So, what is Alice?

Uh, let's let's take a look.

It's a great acronym, stands for asset limited, income constrained employed.

What historically you may have heard called the working poor.

It is something that we're trying to, a name, a persona, a set of tools, a set of data that we can all come together and have a common language around.

Thank you.

And at United Way, it really serves as the foundation for our second century strategy.

We're starting to do scoring on some of our investments to say, how much do we think that this investment is moving the needle for working families?

And and really using the data to ground us in that work.

It's a concept, it's a persona.

You can go to the next slide.

It's now across 40 states.

It started in New Jersey in 2009.

It's grown across uh 40 states now.

There's over 600 corporate United Way and nonprofit and city government partnerships, and so we are in great company.

The good thing is we don't, you know, we were around 34th.

We're so happy to not be 49th or 50th.

We're excited that we were able to bring this right now.

The data you're going to see is based on 2023 data because of the lag.

We're they're a little slow from the federal government getting us the data because of the shutdown, but it we're very near.

When do you expect that next week that we will have the 2025 data coming?

So watch for that.

That's exciting.

So it's a it's a framework.

It's more information.

And you can you can see here the value is democratize data.

When we brought the data, people say, well, how much are you going to charge for people to log in?

Or we raise the money up front because we wanted it to be democratized.

We wanted it to be available for leadership Tulsa when they're writing a grant.

We wanted it to be available for women in recovery when you're making a case to your legislators.

And by the way, my favorite thing about the Alice data is that can be cut by legislative district.

So when someone votes against food snap programs, for example, you can look on there and see how many people are eligible for those kind of programs and have a conversation with your legislator.

They won't answer my call anymore, but they probably might answer yours.

So it's got it's great guidance for program eligibility, community planning, resource allocation.

It helps us find smart solutions, and grounded in fact the data that connects us, Marcia.

So if you go to the next slide, yeah, this one.

It is incredible, and you all have seen the data.

I know you've shared it.

You remember off the top of your head how many billions nationally are lost when people can't access child care?

It's just 122 billion.

Yeah, I think I I thought that was a data point that you shared.

So it literally saves billions and infuses billions into the community when people can earn a living wage and when people can uh do better for their families.

It's it helps the kids in school.

I mean, if a parent has a flat on the way to school and it derails their whole family for a week, what does that do to our educational partnerships and the kids?

What does it do when your barista has a sick child and can't leave the house that day?

You know, that is Alice.

And those are the kind of working families.

Maybe you have an elder care parent when they're when that person can't make it to work.

Or if that person can't afford to stay in the elder care world and has to leave, that affects your ability to earn a living and take care of your family.

So let's dig a little bit deeper into uh this data and see what we can learn today.

I am really just going to take a minute, Melanie.

Melanie not only is the data queen behind the equality indicators that we do in partnership with the city of Tulsa, but I can't tell you what heart and passion, and I, you know, some of you know that I was an English major, and so the fact that she's educated me to use data is a real uh is a real feather in her cap, but she does it with such grace and poise, and we're just so grateful for your work.

Thank you so much, Melanie Edel.

Thank you, Alison.

Thank you, Dr.

Latta, uh, for having us here.

We're so excited to be here with you today, just uh echoing what Alison said.

Um, we're we love the opportunity to get out and share this information and encourage community members, community leaders, you all, uh policy makers, business leaders to use data generally.

That's that's the big reason why we are so enthused about sharing the Alice information, and this is what I always talk about.

When I'm deep into presenting this, and we're to the point where people in the room are looking for chocolate because they're depressed from the data, it's hard data.

But I'm like, if if we don't understand what's going on?

If we don't face the truth and understand what the challenges are, then we can't even begin to solve those problems.

We have to be data informed.

We have to ensure our leaders are data informed.

So that's kind of at the base of this is driving community change to improve our communities.

Um, and we want this to to inspire that to happen.

Like Allison said, this data set is completely publicly available.

You don't have to have a subscription, you don't have to log in, anything.

Okay for Alice.org.

You can go there right now and get all the data we're going to be sharing with you.

Okay, the word for F O R Alice.org.

So let's jump in.

I also like to wander, so I'm going to try to stay right here.

So the mics are where they need to be.

But wanted to talk a first to put it into context.

So how many of you are already very familiar with Alice?

Some, okay.

Any of you not hear about it until this week, maybe?

Is it brand new?

Okay.

That's exciting.

So think of it as a spectrum of how we measure and talk about different wage levels.

You know, we're used to thinking of poverty.

We're used to hearing about living wage.

Well, they're actually a series and minimum wage.

We're used to hearing about that too.

They're kind of a series, a spectrum of different kinds of wages.

So let's put this into context.

Minimum wage is the lowest.

It's actually lower now than poverty for a single person.

Second of two years that it's actually been lower, $725 an hour still.

Poverty is a little higher than that, the federal poverty level.

Alice survival wage, which is the key metric that Alice is based on.

It is a little higher than poverty or substantially higher than poverty.

Then we have living wage, which assumes people ideally have a little bit more spending, and get to enjoy life a little bit.

Survival is pretty survival is the key word there.

You know, we're talking survival with the survival wage.

And then after that, we have a stability wage.

That's an kind of an alternate measure within the Alice framework that they put out there just as a kind of a goal.

Ideally, people should thrive.

So that's where you actually have enough money to have a savings account to save to one day buy a home, to retire, to send your kids to college, that kind of thing.

That's thriving.

Okay?

We're not with the survival wage.

We are not talking about thriving.

We're talking about simply surviving.

I'm gonna get into more into that.

And I love, and I'll just take a quick quick minute, because it's it I love to hear what people think survival wage is for let's say a single person.

Shout out some guesses.

Those who know, you can't answer.

I mean, like yearly, monthly, annual salary, single person in Tulsa in Tulsa County, just throw out a number.

36,000.

Great, thank you.

36,000.

Good guess.

Any other thoughts?

25,000.

25,000.

Okay, it's in between those.

Let's go to the next one.

Um, so what we see is in Tulsa County specifically, that's the beauty of this too.

This is not data for the nation.

This is not even data for the state of Oklahoma.

This is specifically Tulsa County based on costs in Tulsa County.

So, and we have that for the entire state.

Uh, so almost 30,000 a year is what they have determined based on those base level uh expenses that a single person needs to survive in Tulsa County.

One adult and one child, just over 50,000, two working adults and two young children, so you know child care is involved in both of these.

Uh almost 85,000 a year.

Sound high, sound low, sound about right.

Not surprising.

Anyone here thinking, uh, show me the numbers.

Show me the data.

Yeah, you're my people.

Mimi, I know you want the data.

All right, let's take a look.

Here it is broken down.

This is, we're we're using the example of that four-person family, two working adults, two young children.

So, so full-time one full-time child care, one kind of part-time child care is what the need would be there.

Uh, but this is a monthly, uh, this is a um an average monthly budget for that family who's earning right at the Alice threshold.

All right.

Let's start at the top.

Um, $1,100 for housing for a two-bedroom apartment, so rent and utilities in Tulsa County.

Look at child care.

It is the greatest expense for this family.

Over $1,500, taking 22% of this family's budget, then we have food $1301 a month.

That comes out to just over $10 an hour.

Sorry, $10 a day per person.

That's tough.

$10 a day per person.

That's not a whole lot of that's no eating out, pretty much.

That's bringing your lunch from home, making a lunch, um, cooking dinner every night, probably.

Um, transportation, $943.

That covers, so there's two working adults.

Remember, they need two vehicles.

I like to say this, two cars, but a lot of times it's trucks.

We're in Oklahoma.

Um, but that covers gas, fuel for those vehicles, and insurance, routine maintenance.

Guess what it does not cover?

Car payment.

Car payment.

No, the assumption is these families already own their vehicle outright, and and they average about a 10-year-old vehicle.

What's gonna happen to that vehicle?

It's not gonna last forever, right?

Either you need to replace it soon because it's gonna entirely break down, or you've got to pay for a major repair.

There's nothing in the budget for that, though.

So survival, remember survival, no extras.

Um, we got health care at 744.

That is assuming you have employer-sponsored health insurance.

Not everybody does, but this is a the model is assuming that.

So this would be your part of that, employer part, your deductibles, your out-of-pocket expenses, etc.

We got 116 for tech, that is internet in your home, and two cell phones.

That's a good plan.

That's a cheap plan.

Uh 579 is miscellaneous, and what specifically that is, is to account for any kind of overruns on any of the other categories.

So, what's gonna happen next month or so?

Are electric bills gonna be a little higher?

A lot higher because of the heat?

Yes, what if you have family come in to visit?

You need to buy extra food, right?

Various reasons why you need extra extra money in any of these categories.

So that's what that is.

It's 10% of the overall net income for a month.

Then we finally have taxes, federal and state income taxes.

So these are gross amounts, those dollar amounts we we gave.

$691 federal and state income tax for that income level and family type.

Yeah.

Sorry, I get excited, and I see these presentations all the time with you, but real quick, do you see these numbers shifting anytime soon?

Because I'm actually looking at this thinking it's a little low with some things that are happening with access to vehicle parts, gas, grocery bill shifting.

Do you see when do you update that yearly and what's just what so I know what this data is to slash out of?

Great question.

So this is like Alison was saying, this is actually based on 2023 expenses.

So it is, it's certainly not accounting for some of the food price increases, the current gas um costs, housing increases that continue.

Yes.

So that's what it's reflected, that's what it reflects.

And next year we will, I mean, next week we will have the new data, and that's the best we can do.

That's that's as soon as the data really are available.

But great great point.

Yeah.

So what's missing from this that maybe you like to have in your families or is kind of a normal expectation for living?

Clothes, clothing, entertainment, entertainment, nothing for entertainment, Christmas, Christmas, there's two small children.

Vacation, school supplies, school supplies, toys.

There's not a toys category.

What's that?

Summer camps.

Yes.

There's nothing for savings for retirement.

For that new car.

That's not included anywhere.

What are you gonna do when that car breaks down?

You have nothing to put towards it.

Yeah, great observation.

Just to make you aware, this truly is, we're talking survival wage.

Not that that's what we ultimately want for people.

We want people to thrive.

But this is like, okay, let's at least get to this bar so they can have food.

People can all have food on their tables and a roof over their heads without fear of being evicted.

Although, I mean, things happen all the time that throw off all your planning and all your budget, right?

We do the Alice simulation.

We've done a couple this week, and that's if you want to hear more about that, please talk to the TAEW team, because we love going out and doing those.

And we incorporate in that those things that just randomly come up.

Life, the flat tire you talked about, for instance.

Alright, so we're gonna dig a little deeper into this family of four.

That's the bottom bar that shows the Alice wage for that family we were just talking about.

Okay, at 85,000 a year.

So let's compare that to some other common wages, starting with minimum wage at the top.

That is what a person earning a minimum wage full-time year-round employment is making.

That's what they're making gross.

Yeah.

Okay.

That person cannot afford, they can't support themselves, let alone a family.

Let's let's go to $20 an hour.

So we're talking two working adults, so $10 an hour each.

$10 an hour sounds good compared to minimum wage, right?

Can that family can that couple support their family?

No.

$30 an hour.

We're talking $15 an hour each, still not meeting what it takes to support this family.

Now let's do it look another layer, the federal poverty level.

Okay, 100% of poverty is currently at $33,000 per year for four people in a family, and that's 2026 updated data.

Do you remember when a time when you assume as long as you're above federal poverty level, you're doing okay?

That used to be a thing.

That was a reasonable measure.

Is it now?

If you're that means a family for earning 35,000 a year is not poor, they're not in poverty.

Are they struggling financially?

Yes, or sure.

They're on nowhere near being able to pay their bills.

200% of poverty, still not enough.

It's not until you get to about 250% of poverty where you're actually about meeting Alice.

No matter what family type we look at, it's about 250%.

Does that make sense?

Yeah.

And just to make sure I understand.

Well, I'm saying this out loud: the fact that the DHS substity just dropped from 85% of the poverty level to 55% of the poverty level to even qualify for benefits, and that's hitting everybody July 1st.

Where's the sense?

Where's the sense?

That's why we so badly want to get in front of the legislature with this data.

Do I set for context?

Do you mind just sharing?

I don't know.

And I know we've got some brilliant women here too.

Oh, just to qualify for SNAP.

What's the number?

Is it 100%?

Did you okay?

It's actually, I was thinking it might have been the next slide.

It's another couple of slides.

We talked about that earlier and planned for her to ask.

I don't know.

We're gonna look at this.

People are begging for more data.

So before we get to that, um, this is a kind of um just a little scenario of several different job types, occupations, common occupations in Oklahoma.

Uh, and these are Oklahoma average wages, current average wages, so EMT, child care worker, teacher, firefighter, etc.

And their wages are up there in the legend.

So we're comparing that to in different family situations and showing you what the Alice threshold is for that particular family type.

So, what do you see?

As individuals, all of those people in those positions, what we like to call the the workforce behind the workforce, these are are some of the positions that enable us all to go to work every day.

Somebody's watching our kids, somebody's teaching our kids, somebody's keeping our streets safe, right?

Essential positions.

On their own, they're not Alice.

But look what's happens when we add a child or two.

You had two children.

Every one of those is now at below the Alice threshold.

Here, this last set of bars, two working adults, two young children.

The EMT, the child care worker, the administrative assistant are all still with two workers.

But you can't now Alice.

What's that?

You can't usually afford for both of them to work.

That's a good point.

A lot of times the one adult will stay home to not have to pay child care.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I know I need to get moving here.

Um I get off on tangents and love to have these conversations, but given all of that, what does that tell us about the city of Tulsa?

What are we looking at?

Who is our Alice population?

So what we know is it's almost half.

Almost half of our households.

And we're talking survival again.

This isn't about thriving.

This is survival.

So 49%, 80 over 85,000 of our households.

That ranges from single person households to eight people families.

19% of that are below the poverty level.

30% are actually in that Alice group.

And I won't spend much time on these, but it's across all demographics, okay?

I'm gonna go ahead and skip through these, but all family types are impacted.

Um, all age groups are impacted.

Across the city, when we look at it by zip code, there are areas that are harder hit than others, higher percentage of the population fall below the Alice threshold.

All right, here's the one Marcy was talking about.

And what this is showing is the income eligibility level for a range of public assistance programs, and then notice the blue bar on top, the dotted line, is the is Alice threshold, okay?

About 250% of poverty.

Let's take SNAP as an example.

SNAP is 130% of poverty level.

That is the income eligibility eligibility level that Oklahoma has chosen to use.

Um, that's the lowest level we could choose.

Texas has a higher level.

I think it's 185%.

Other states have higher levels, but that's what we picked.

So what happens?

If you're earning 140% of the poverty level, you get in SNAP.

You can't.

You make too much money.

You're trapped in a poverty cycle.

Yeah.

Who does that make sense to?

Does that make sense to anybody?

Because if it does, I want I want to hear.

Please explain it to me.

It doesn't make sense to me.

I'm not sure how it makes sense to the legislators.

Alright, we're gonna quickly go to, Seth, if you can help me, Seth Bevan, everybody from United Way.

Um we brought our own tech.

We're gonna go to the website really quick.

I just want to demo it to you.

Because all of you can get on here, everybody can get on here.

Forget you guys take the questions.

Bring the take your mic.

Oh, take my mic.

The other one.

Okay.

Do I take both?

Yeah, take both.

You can take both.

Okay, they don't need it then.

Well, that one will project, I guess.

Alright, so this is the page you'll go to when you go to okay for Alice.org.

And what I would recommend some great, here's your menu here on the left.

Can you all see my mouse?

Okay.

Cost of basics is a great place to explore, and you can um look at it for the whole state.

You can look at it by county.

I won't spend a whole lot of time here just because I want to show you some specific things you want to have into.

Okay.

Thank you.

So here is that uh survival wage budget right here for uh you can pick your own county.

It also gives you the thri the uh stability budget.

That's where the thriving uh budget is actually called.

You can see that.

So for comparison, that two adult two and child care is the family we've been talking about for thriving, it's closer to 141,000.

1870 dollars.

It's it's about 141,000 as opposed to that 80, I think we're about 85,000.

So about 60,000, almost 60,000 more to thrive.

Let's quickly go to county reports.

I want you to see.

Here's what I wanted you to see.

You can you can see the whole state by county.

You can see zip codes.

Actually, won't let me do that unless I go to oh, yeah, it is.

Okay, there and you can download all of this as well.

You can also download that as an image data sheet.

If you want, just want the data, go here.

If you want the report, the first year report, go here next week.

We'll this will all be updated.

I wanted to show you that legislative district tool, especially because I'm really excited to about people talking to their legislators about this.

And I won't take the time to go to Oklahoma, but we could pull up Oklahoma, we could pull up any of the districts across the state and get.

We get the data not only for the whole population.

Yes, it's your district.

We're not talking about some far-off place.

Here's your data.

Please use this.

But it tells total in poverty, total.

Uh, who are Alice, total above uh Alice Threshold?

It tells how many um, here's the percent below the threshold.

Here are the percent of those who participate in SNAP.

There's a mismatch there.

There is a mismatch.

Um, I'm gonna go back and I'm glad this is being so responsive and and good.

I want to show um go back to the dig deeper, show you the economic viability dashboard, which is um what we are encouraging people to to dig into to help transform um data into action because we don't want this just for data's sake.

What's the point?

We want this to drive action, we want this to improve communities and help families thrive.

Um there's maps and data based on work, housing community, um, action planner is where you actually get into you can get into these what they call promising practices, kind of best practices.

You can for instance, we're talking about child care.

It gives you a research base description of what that is, gives you a site to go learn more.

So, you know, imagine nonprofits kind of wanting to address a certain gap in the community, and they can use this resource to really kind of get started and find out um what can we do to make this work?

Allison action.

This will be the last thing I show.

Uh, and then I'm gonna trans hand this back over to Alison.

Here's a cool thing.

So what have we don't all have to reinvent the wheel, do we?

We can learn from what other communities have done.

Did I spell it right?

Sometimes there's a space.

I've finally learned that there's not a space there.

Um, but learn about all kinds of things that other communities have done.

Specifically, this is just there's 14 pages of examples.

Learn about what other communities have done in the area of child care.

Learn from what others have done.

Okay, Seth, why don't you send us back?

Okay, please, thank you.

And I'm gonna hand it back to Alison.

Oops, not quite ready.

Okay, I am I so appreciate uh Melanie's passion and energy, but you can see that the data is rich and the information we don't have to create recreate the wheel.

And Annie and her team, um, and uh Madison is out and work and her team are out uh with workplaces.

We're getting ready to start an Alice at work cohort, which will bring it's a pilot that will bring five companies together, and uh we're gonna be looking at some of the the work and the data within each company, and then how they can put some things into place, and it's not always about pay.

Sometimes it's about a bus line, sometimes it's about starting 30 minutes later, so someone can drop their kids off, and so we're real excited about that pilot and hope to be doing more of those in the future.

But this is this is the why we do this work.

And if you want to go to the next slide, Melanie, just the and leave that up there.

Are there any other questions right now before we close?

Because I know you guys have other business to, are there any other specific questions?

Yes.

So let's say there's other data nerds in the audience that have a couple hours but need a little bit of support being able to get through that.

Are you guys offering like a more in-depth session to be able to dive into the data and really kind of show that?

We we absolutely can do that.

We're kind of on a road show right now doing outreach, whatever a group needs.

I'm also glad to just get on a Zoom call with you or sit with you and walk through it and explore it.

Um but we can do it with a group.

We have done more of an in-depth data dashboard, and and people can bring theirs and explore it at the same time.

All of all of the above.

Oh, my wife keeps them.

I mean, but it's not about politics, it's about the facts, and then understanding where to meet your employees so that we can help our employees be their best and show up their best at work.

This is why we do the work, and that is what I was saying about United Way, it's why we do the work because we're intent on finding solutions.

We're always going to need a safety net.

We are always going to have people that need a little extra help.

It's why we fund 160 programs.

And uh the last thing I'll say on the last slide there, in case anyone wants your your QR code, Melanie, is that um I gave my high school valedictorian speech in 1983, and women were paid 60 cents for every dollar that men were paid then, and now we're up to Dr.

Lada tells me 76 cents.

So I did the math, and I think I'll be if I live to be 88, I might get to 94 cents on the dollar.

So I'm pushing 100, but I would love it for this group of amazing women and the people and the teams that you interact with.

The more we work together in our workplaces and in cities like this, the more we can make change at scale.

So I thank you so much.

We stand up for every community, every every woman, and um, I'm excited about the fact that together we can really change the culture and uh the strength of our city.

Thank you for the work you're doing.

Okay, I'm gonna come up here just so that my voice can be amplified.

Thank you so much for the Herculean effort that was invested to make this accessible to us so that we can share it with our networks.

You may think to yourself, I'm one person, what can I do?

You can do a lot, and your network can do even more.

And so sharing this information with people that um also have influence and spreading the word is is so incredibly important.

Um, but it wouldn't exist if it wasn't for the incredible Tulsa Area United way, and we are just enormously grateful.

Thank you.

Um, we do have just a couple items of business that I will get through.

I um you weren't here earlier, so I'm just gonna um shout it out.

The uh women's leadership summit was amazing, and I I do want to give some major props to of course uh Commissioner uh Bruno Todd for leading that event and Commissioner Edwards who co-presented about the uh we presented about the work of the commission, but specifically focused on child care access.

And we'll share that presentation with you.

We would be happy to share that with you, so that you can then share it again with your networks.

And if this is your first time as an audience member at a Title Five Commission, welcome.

Um, there are six incredible Title Five Commissions that meet on a regular basis.

They're mayoral appointed advisory boards and they're established by city ordinance.

Um, and you can see those listed here.

You can also access the time of each of the meetings on the city website.

Just the city website's really navigable.

You just type in one of the commissions and you can find more information on those.

So we welcome you wholeheartedly, and we hope that you'll come back.

Our meetings will be in this room.

So commissioners, this is our new home for our commission meetings, which we're really excited about because we can have lots of people join us.

First Fridays of the month at noon, um, with the exception of July.

So we will take a little break, but then we'll pick back up in August.

Um and uh commissioners, uh, this is just a reminder that there is a Title V commission retreat on July 24th.

Um, and again, this will stay in here as a reminder.

Our family safety center um drive will be taking place on October 3rd to support the case Family Safety Center.

Um I already said that.

All right, we do have an action on the agenda that is to vote to recommend a human rights commission liaison for appointment.

I've taken a big game because I don't have someone.

So I'm gonna throw it out there, and I wanna first of all say thank you.

Enormous thank you to Desiree Edwards, Commissioner Edwards for serving as the liaison to the human rights commission.

Would you share a few words about that commitment and what that looks like so folks can get a sense of what the commitment might entail?

Absolutely.

So the Human Rights Commission meets the third Monday of every month, and it is an incredible commission to be on.

Um this year we were focusing on how to make the uh complaint process easier and more accessible because we saw that as one of the barriers of people being able to actually submit their human rights complaints to the city.

Um, and then we were also working on an easy way so that uh we could get more representation from all across the city council districts.

One thing we've noticed is that we're really heavy being represented in like three districts, and we need more voices from more parts of the city so that we have a better understanding of grassroots what's going on.

Um, and so we're collecting that data, figuring out a way to make it easily easily accessible, and then providing it to like city council.

So whenever they do their appointees, and the mayor when they do their appointees, they'll have more information, they'll have more data.

Um I have a business meeting that overlaps my uh the third Mondays, and so I'm no longer able to support it, but it is an amazing commission to be on.

All of them are amazing.

This one is awesome.

All right, so I'm gonna elevate the opportunity to see if there's somebody who has a burning desire to serve on as our liaison from the women's commission for the human rights commission.

Likendra, do we need to have a name today or what's the goal for you don't have to have a name today?

Um, you can if you want to have a committee established, you can almost have a nominating committee established, and they can get a slate of names, and then we can represent that slate to the body and then vote.

Okay, so it's there's a few different ways you could do it.

Okay.

So just presenting it today as something that you don't have to do take a vote today, okay, but just presenting it today to say we need to form a committee so that we can get someone, we can appoint some names and then represent those names, maybe in the next meeting.

Perfect.

That sounds great.

That will give us some time to think about and check our calendars and see if this is something if we have margin to participate.

I know we're all very busy and also serving on committees.

Um, but please consider it.

I I know that that is an incredible, incredible committee.

And of course, we'll take any um volunteers.

So we're excited to elevate that at our next meeting, which isn't July, it's August.

Yes, and are we full as a commission of as a women's commission, or do we have space for additional nominees?

Um, there the commission is not there, it's not full.

There are, I don't know how many their spots are.

I think there may be two spots on the Tulsa Women's Committee.

Is that accurate?

I think it's two.

Okay, two spots, yeah.

So any questions or thoughts before we keep those in?

So we're not going to take a vote today, but we are going to re-elevate it at our next meeting in August.

So the women's commission, as Alison alluded to, we have focused on sort of we've had over the last five years three different initiative foci.

The first one was pay equity, the second, child care access.

And for the past year, we've been focusing on safety, women's safety.

And our group has divided into five committees.

And so I want to create space and opportunity for any updates from chairs of the committees if you have updates.

So it'll be an open call for updates.

If you don't have updates, that's all right.

Bethesda?

So I'm gonna be reporting for um Commissioner Jacobs because she's out of town.

But we did we've held our first meeting, and um it we we've talked about themes of personal safety, whether it's through dating, being at a gas station, parking garage, your home, in your car, situational awareness, and then self-defense.

So we talked about all these items, and what we're doing now is we have different um people on our committee are reaching out to like someone's gonna be talking to Carol Bush and Lori Fulbright, and also Laurel Roberts, and so we're doing that's what we're doing right now.

We're getting more data, and then we'll have more to share at our at the August meeting.

But one thing that's interesting, there's a heat map.

There's heat maps all over the place, but there's a heat map for where there's work for violence in Tulsa.

So, and you never know.

I mean, it's not just in certain areas.

It's ever like I'm afraid at a gas station, even at 21st in Lewis.

So, you they talk to you about.

I think what I want to learn is what do I do when I'm getting out and pumping gas in my car?

Am I am I supposed to like have my purse with me?

Am I supposed to do this?

What am I?

Those are the kind of things that I want to know that we're talking about because I feel like that's why I wanted to be on this committee, and nobody wanted to join it with me, so I had to make others at the meeting.

I was the only one who signed up for it, but I feel like it's kind of gotten lost in the shuffle with all the other there's so many issues facing women.

That's right.

I feel like it's kind of gotten lost.

It reminds me of like in the 70s, it was a big deal, but I feel like it's gotten lost in the shuffle, so I'm trying to bring it to the forefront.

Thank you so much.

We look forward to more info in August.

Any other for the housing and economic security uh being co-chaired with the amazing in-progress Dr.

Tamil Bend.

We are working on effective recruitment so that there's representation in the committee.

Candidly, we paused our engagement until the women's leadership summit was behind me, but we are working on just representation for that.

Um, and again, the the focus we looked at was folks that were.

Do you want to share that?

So almost Dr.

Bent.

Thank you for the uh we were definitely looking at immigrant communities, right?

Um, we wanted to engage with um younger women, right?

So uh making sure that we have the age kind of range represented.

Um, just as involved women as well.

Uh, we're just thinking of folks that are not or missing from these conversations to give us insights.

So I'm saying this for the brilliant people that are here today, if that will interest you, please join future doctor Bent, our future doctor if we don't talk.

That's right.

That's our goal at the end of this commission.

Two future doctors.

Uh so committees can be joined.

You don't have to be a part of the commission in order to join a committee.

We have five committees that are listed here: personal safety, housing and economic security, health and emotional safety, community safety and belonging, and systems rights and institutional safety.

Thank you so much, Commissioner Jackson.

Thank you, Commissioner Bent and Commissioner Bruno Todd.

Any other updates?

Yes, Commissioner Duke.

I'm so excited.

I have our meeting notes that I'm gonna pass around.

You might have to share a few copies.

Let's see this competitive, can I snag it?

Commissioner, we love it.

Okay.

So Ashley and I had a chance to have our first meeting for community safety and belonging on May 15th.

Very excited about this committee.

We established our core principle, which is all women in Tulsa should feel invited, connected, and like they matter in our city.

So very excited about the work that we are thinking through.

A couple of the ideas that we generated in our committee initially is to develop a catalog of connection opportunities.

So really we're focusing on this idea and definition of belonging and thinking about Tulsa is such an incredible community with amazing opportunities for people to connect, but oftentimes people don't know about them.

And so we are thinking through ways that we could develop a catalog of all of those opportunities and then disseminate that out into the community for women to access easily.

Some of the proposed catalog categories that we thought through are safety resources and groups.

So thinking about domestic violence, physical safety, and different ways people connect can connect in that space.

Motherhood, because we know that that can often be very isolating, and you often need to connect with those that are in a similar stage of life, seasoned women in life, and so thinking about people where maybe kids have transitioned out of the house and wanting to connect with others in that stage of life, and then social and cultural opportunities as well.

So our next steps are to present the plan at this meeting.

Join our committee, anybody that would like to that is passionate about this work, and then also we had talked about really building the storytelling around these opportunities, and so thinking about the possibility of publishing this catalog, similar to what happened with you know the child care resources and the report that was released through this commission, and so connecting with Dr.

Lada to get a better idea of how that was published over time.

So welcome anybody to join.

Yes, thank you so much, Commissioner DuPont.

Okay, the health and emotional safety.

We'll be working with all the other committees because we are the physical mental health and emotional well-being.

We recruited two women to be part of our committee, and of course, we welcome other people to join, but we are we have to be very focused.

We want to accomplish something.

We may we met May 18th, I believe it was, but we are also focusing on the October 3rd event with Suzanne Stewart at the Family Safety Center.

We have a meeting on Monday with her, and we are going to talk about what we should be focusing on at this time, and then I like the idea of looking at what the personal safety, your catalog.

I mean, it'll make sense that we have to not just be I you know, siloed so as we work together.

How do we focus things that we can then produce something as one?

Fantastic.

Thank you so much.

But the October 3rd will be very important because we'll be collecting things for the family safety center, and we already have a wish list.

We'll be meeting with her on Monday to plan the project as it is.

Thank you so much.

Commissioner Palacios.

Yes, Commissioner Edwards, and I chair the systems rights and institutional safety one, which kind of supports all of them.

So just right now, currently looking at policy.

Um that's why I was salivating over the Alice data.

Um so that our next steps is looking at that and uh just diving deeper into it.

Thank you so much.

I think that covers all five of our committees.

We are making great headway, and we've got a couple months now to um to do work or have developments or do research.

Um, and so we look forward to more updates at the August meeting.

I don't believe that there's any old business.

There isn't any old business or new business, and we didn't have anyone sign up for public comment.

Are there any announcements from the group?

Okay, all right.

Oh yes, oh yes, I'm so sorry, Commissioner Braddock.

As I sit next to the commissioner here, we both share the same story of aging out of foster care.

Um Channel 6 News did a story on me this past Wednesday.

They just passed uh Governor Stitt signed a bill where um individuals can age out now at age 21, giving them a stipend and um stipends over them to continue on because they saw that when they age out at 18, there's nothing, no finances or anything for them.

So I have the opportunity to share my story of aging out of foster care when I was 18 and how that was a struggle and had to work three jobs just to get myself through college.

So yeah, it's a great story.

So check it out.

What news station was?

Channel 6 News.

Alright, so Google, Prima Donna Braddock, News on 6.

Um, thank you so much for sharing uh Commissioner Braddock.

Um, the incredible Lakendra shared a couple of announcements.

So um skip the visit to Tulsa City Hall, attend the satellite permit center.

So this is for permitting on in June.

You can come look at this if you're interested in getting a permit, um, come check this out.

And then the Gathering Greenwood Genealogy event is a three-day event at Gradient here downtown, um, Thursday, June 18th through Saturday, June 20th.

So another really great event that's happening.

You can check that out up here.

Anything on the other announcements?

All right.

Um, we did not have time for introductions to go around the table, but I encourage all of our guests, please come speak to us, meet us.

We would love to meet you, and we hope that you'll come back.

That this is not the first and only time that you'll be here, but that you join with us and link arms with us in this work because there's a lot of work to do on behalf of women's economic mobility, upward mobility, and just thriving.

So thank you again for joining.

Thank you, commissioners.

And um, with that, I will accept a move to adjourn.

So moved.

Okay.

In a second.

Alright, all in favor of adjournment, say aye.

Any opposed?

Any abstentions?

We are adjourned.

Next one.

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