Churches Hold Block Party To Support North Tulsa Tornado Victims

A north Tulsa community still is getting back on its feet after tornadoes tore through the area a few weeks ago. A group of churches held a block party for families in that neighborhood to help with the recovery.

Bag after bag of food and gifts were loaded into the Church of Eternal Love sanctuary on Saturday morning. The church miraculously was spared the night of March 30, when tornadoes touched down.

"So I am thankful, but I do utilize that same opportunity that we were blessed with to reach out to others," Church of Eternal Love Pastor Diana Serisis said.

Serisis and the congregations of at least 9 other churches decided to work together to help families still dealing with the effects of the storm and their neighbors.

They hosted a block party for the community and handed out a hot meal, provided groceries, a Mother’s Day gift and entertainment for the day.

"We came up here just to meet people, see what had happened, find out how we could help,” City Church Pastor Matt Nelson said. “We were able to get eight churches around Tulsa to say, ‘hey, we'll come up, throw a block party and provide for the needs and bless the community that's been through a rough time the last few weeks,’"

"The clean up here is far from over. Some homes were completely destroyed by the storm and line the streets up and down the 46th Street North corridor.

“There will be people coming for food, we've got legal advice, there are a lot of just resources available for them,” Nelson said.

Those resources will help this community move forward with repairs, living situations and getting the neighborhood back to normal.

Serisis says all that is happening, slowly but surely.

“If we all work collectively together, we can get it done,” she said.