COMMUNITY TAKES CARE OF COMMUNITY — AND WE WANT TO DO OUR PART

OKLAHOMA (TUC) — Y’all, our team has been talking about something we really want to do, and we wanted to throw the idea out there and see what everyone thinks.

We want to find a way to give back and help people in our community who may be going through a hard time. We know we can’t help everyone (even though we really wish we could), and starting out it probably won’t be a whole lot, but even if we can help one family with $100 here and there, that’s still $100 they didn’t have before.

We’ve tossed around a few ideas over the past few days, like getting local businesses involved as sponsors, allowing people in the community to contribute if they want to, or even making some TUC merchandise with the proceeds going into this community fund.

Because sometimes $100 can make a bigger difference than people realize. It might help someone get groceries, put gas in their car, buy diapers, or just take a little bit of weight off their shoulders when things are already hard enough. And if more people or businesses eventually want to get involved, maybe we can grow it from there and help with even more.

Of course, we would want to make sure we do everything the right way before we ever start accepting money. We would keep track of what comes in and what goes out, and be completely transparent about where the money is going while still protecting the privacy of anyone receiving help. And nobody would ever owe us their story or have to be posted publicly just because they received some help. That's not what this would be about.

We’re still figuring everything out, but we wanted to ask y’all first:

Would this be something our community and local businesses would be interested in getting behind?

Would y’all actually be interested in purchasing TUC shirts, hoodies, hats, stickers or other merch if you knew the proceeds were going back into helping people in our communities?

And if merchandise isn't the way to go, what other ideas do y’all have? Maybe local business sponsorships, fundraising events, community partnerships, or something we haven't even thought of yet. We want to hear it all.

It might start small, but that's okay. If we can help make things a little easier for even one person or one family when they really need it, then we think it's worth trying. At the end of the day, this community supports us every single day, and we would love to find another way to give some of that support right back.

So throw some ideas at us, y’all. How can TUC and our community work together to give back?