Community Food Bank Helps Turley Foundation Following Fire

Less than 36 hours after a fire destroyed a community center and food pantry in Turley, the non-profit is moving forward with help from the community.

Dozens of people lined up and volunteers handed out food to people in need Friday.

3/2/2017 Related Story: Fire Destroys Turley Community Center

A Thursday morning fire burned most of A Third Place community center near 59th Place North and Peoria. It's a building where many people in Turley picked up their groceries - an important need in what's called a food desert.

The food distribution was planned long before Thursday's fire, but now the nonprofit says the event means more.

"The loss of the building was like the loss of a family member, and we need to grieve it. We also need to find the blessings in the normal, ordinary things, and for us, this is one of our normal, ordinary things," Reverend Ron Robinson said.

The Community Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma brought out its mobile eatery to make and hand out free lunches.

Food bank leaders said they heard about the fire and wanted to help out.

3/3/2017 Related Story: Donations Sought To Help Turley Food Pantry Destroyed In Fire

Greg Raskin said, "When we heard about the fire, we wanted to support in any way that we could and we knew the people were already going through a traumatic time."

The food bank said the mobile eateries try to make a stop in this neighborhood once a week.