Oasis Fresh Market provided north Tulsans with free lunch and dinner Wednesday as the city’s public schools remained closed for a third consecutive snow day. Many are choosing to stay closed Thursday, citing poor road conditions.
“Schools have been out for three days, and children are hungry, and most of the kids in north Tulsa are on free and reduced breakfast and lunch,” said AJ Johnson, founder and CEO of Oasis. “We’re the answer, and so that’s why we stepped up.”
As of 2024, over 80% of students attending Tulsa Public Schools qualify as economically disadvantaged. Courtney Clayton is a parent of two district students, one in kindergarten and another in 7th grade.
As January comes to a close, she said making her kids meals has become a little bit strenuous. Having Oasis provide free food a few minutes away from her home was helpful.
“I’m kind of getting overwhelmed,” Clayton said. “So we’re just taking advantage.”
Clayton and her kids were able to enjoy free popcorn and pizza alongside about a dozen other kids and parents at the front corner of the grocery store. Oasis is one of two grocers in north Tulsa, which is considered a food desert with limited access to nutritious options.
The take-home dinner boxes were packed with macaroni and cheese, green beans, pasta sauce, mashed potatoes and gravy and egg noodles. The grocery store also had small bags of bananas and apples available.
Johnson told The Eagle that “hunger has no qualifiers.”
“Whether it be grandparents raising great grandkids, or single moms or just kids in need that walk to the store every day, there’s no qualifiers,” he said. “Come hungry, leave, happy.”
During last year’s government shutdown in October, Oasis launched the “What Would You Do?” campaign, an initiative to help provide food to families who were left without their benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) commonly known as food stamps.
Johnson told The Eagle they were able to provide over 7,000 meals by the end of the campaign in December. Initiatives like the free snow day lunches and last year’s campaign are representative of what Johnson said is the heart of Oasis.
“Food is medicine,” Johnson said. “Inclement weather doesn’t stop people’s hungry bellies, children’s hungry bellies, and so this is just in alignment to our heartbeat and the heartbeat of who we are.”
Ismael Lele is a Report for America corps member and writes about business in Tulsa for The Oklahoma Eagle. Your donation to match our Report for America grant helps keep him writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting this link.
