Upon this ROC
Ministry spreads hope by meeting tangible, spiritual needs.
This story is part of “How the West was Won,” an ongoing series about houses of worship in the fast-growing western segment of the Oklahoma City metro area.
At first, the women saw one another only when they visited the local food pantry seeking supplies to feed themselves and their families. However, volunteers soon noticed that they kept coming back day after day even after their needs were met. The women weren’t starving for food anymore — they were hungry for fellowship. Those chance encounters at the Reaching Our City (ROC) food pantry evolved into a women’s ministry called The Vine. One part old-fashioned prayer meeting and one part support group, The Vine meets at every Friday at the ROC’s ministry headquarters at 7710 NW 10. A free lunch is provided by a different generous individual or group each week so that the women may socialize in an informal and peaceful setting.
“I started at the food pantry because I needed food, and it has literally changed my life,” said Carol Wedel, who serves as a table captain and helps gather and distribute door prizes and birthday gifts for The Vine participants.
Wedel said she had been addicted to alcohol and remembered sneaking over to a nearby liquor store, but being connected to the ROC and building friendships with other Vine attendees changed her life. “The Lord led me here. I feel like this is the place for me, it’s just been such a blessing,” she said.
The women’s gathering is just one of the ways the ROC meets the needs of individuals and families living in neighborhoods surrounding NW 10, specifically 10 ZIP codes including: 73127, 73128, 73008, 73112, 73116, 73120, 73122, 73134, 73142 and 73162.
The Rev. Richard Schneberger serves as both the ROC’s executive director and pastor of the Reaching Our City church, which is affiliated with the Church of the Nazarene.
He said the ROC is a faithbased community development organization that was begun by the church but is now a separate nonprofit entity.
The organization was founded by the Church of the Nazarene after schoolteacher Marilyn Denson made local denominational leaders aware of the struggles of families living in the west segment of the city. Schneberger said she was particularly concerned about the community’s youngest members, the children.
The ROC started as a free medical clinic, then eventually opened a food pantry, and The Vine women’s group. The medical clinic closed after several years when another medical clinic opened nearby, but the ROC continued to expand in other ways.
The nonprofit has a resale shop at 1212 N Rockwell, and it also offers a second food pantry, the Tulakes Pantry, in partnership with Bethany First Church of the Nazarene, in addition to the one at the organization’s headquarters. Schneberger said the ROC also offers several children’s programs, including the Reach After-School Tutoring program for students at Greenvale Elementary School and a Reach Summer Camp designed to provide fun and safe summer activities for children from the surrounding neighborhoods.
Schneberger said the nonprofit also offers an annual Christmas Toy Store that allows parents to shop for free gifts and books to give as Christmas presents to their children.
Hope amid challenges
Denson’s original assessment of the ROC’s service area still holds true these days.
Schneberger said many families in the area are society’s working poor, and they continue to struggle with poverty and an assortment of related troubles.
He said in recent years, organizations like the Oklahoma City Police Department and some businesses and other groups have come together with the ROC to develop some strategies to help reduce crime and provide programs for residents in need of assistance. The pastor said representatives from some of the numerous apartment complexes in the area also joined the coalition called West 10 so they could be part of the plan to transform the area.
There have been challenges for the ROC in its 19 years of existence; however, Schneberger said there is much good being done in the targeted area, and God’s love continues to be shared with those who need to know Him. Volunteers from different Christian faith denominations have joined with the Nazarenes to offer hope in both tangible and spiritual forms.
Schneberger said he had to draw on his knowledge of the ROC’s positive impact on the community when his good friend was killed delivering a pizza to an apartment complex in the area.
He said he was jarred when his college pal, Jeremy Moore, 29, was killed in 2008 when he was working an extra job as a pizza delivery driver. Schneberger, a Southern Nazarene University graduate, said the two had reunited when he began to work at the ROC. Moore was killed in a robbery that netted his assailants at the Lantana Apartments, 7408 NW 10, $42.91. Schneberger said his friend was trying to save to buy a house for his family.
The pastor said the younger siblings of one of the youths who took part in Moore’s killing had been coming to the ROC for different programs.
“It was just a surreal experience on the one side to be grieving for a friend and then to know the family of someone who was being charged with the crime,” he said. “It was really one of those experiences of the brokenness and challenges that we face.”
Schneberger and the ROC staff and volunteers cling to the positive stories when the negative threatens to drown out hope.
He said one of those stories involved a homeless woman who had been living on the streets for most of her life. The woman and her male friend were well known by most people associated with the ROC, and though they offered many times to help the couple get off the street, the pair always declined.
Then, the man was fatally struck by a car while he was crossing the street, and the woman was inconsolable. For the first time, she allowed the ROC ministry leaders to bring her in, feed her and pray for her.
Schneberger and Kathy Powell, volunteer coordinator of The Vine, said the woman still battles addiction and continues to live on the street, but she rarely misses an opportunity to attend The Vine gatherings. In fact, she attended the Jan. 26 luncheon with a big smile on her face and a pleasant greeting for other attendees. “She has gotten to know the Lord. She comes faithfully, and we got to baptize her,” Powell said.
Schneberger smiled himself at the memory of the woman’s baptism. “You have to hold on to those stories,” he said.
“We have some kids and families we are working with now, you see the trajectory if something doesn’t change. But we are people of faith. We have made progress. We are making a difference and we know there are no hopeless causes.”