Owasso Community Resources Changing Some Protocols For The New Year

Nearly three years after the COVID pandemic first started, Owasso Community Resources lifted its pandemic protocols, but it's also taking some of the serving methods it used with them.

During the pandemic, Owasso Community Resources knew more people were going to be in need of food and other resources which is why it expanded to serve anyone in need, not just those in the Owasso, Collinsville, and Sperry areas.

As a result, Owasso Community Resources had to change how it did its day-to-day operations. This included implementing a drive-through service for grocery pickup and reducing the number of volunteers for a while.

Owasso Community Resources decided that this drive-through service was more efficient and allowed the volunteers to have a better idea of what they had in store, and this is why Owasso Community Resources will be sticking with it for the time being.

"It's proved to work really well. We're able to kind of visualize and get an idea of what we have before we start, and we have some incredible volunteers that have been doing it now for a year or two and they're able to see what we've got that day because it always varies in the amount of food that we pick up each day," Mendi Burns, development coordinator for Owasso Community Resources, said.

However, now the focus will go back to serving a smaller area.

"As we are now a couple of years out from the pandemic, the initial phase of the pandemic, we feel like now we need to get back to what our focus was initially which was the Owasso, Collinsville, Sperry districts and focus on those clients," Burns said.

Even though Owasso Community Resources is going to focus on those three areas, this doesn't mean that it will turn people who need help away. It will still provide help, but it will also help them find food pantries closer to where they live.