F3 Podcast - Faith, Family, and Finance
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F3 Podcast - Faith, Family, and Finance
Donna Murphy and Mark Mesiti-Miller | Season 2 Episode 4 | Sustainability in Small-Town America
What happens when California transplants bring their sustainability mindset to a small Oklahoma town? Rather than facing resistance, they discover a community eager to embrace environmental stewardship—just waiting for someone to start the conversation.
In this enlightening episode, Donna Murphy and Mark Mesiti-Miller share the surprising journey of founding the Durant Sustainability Coalition. After organizing what they thought would be a modest environmental meet-and-greet that drew 75 people on a snowy night, they realized they had tapped into something powerful: a shared desire to create a more sustainable future for children and grandchildren.
The conversation explores how sustainability transcends political divides when framed around values everyone shares—clean water, safe streets, beautiful public spaces, and responsible resource management. Through their four core initiatives (mobility, tree canopy enhancement, recycling, and community cleanliness), they've transformed abstract environmental concepts into tangible community benefits.
Their story illuminates the power of grassroots action—from securing a $35,000 grant to plant trees throughout downtown to catalyzing a subscription-based recycling program when city implementation wasn't feasible. Each success demonstrates how awareness leads to action, and action creates meaningful change.
Perhaps most inspiring is their collaborative approach. "There is not a program or a project that we do alone," Donna explains, highlighting how partnerships with local businesses, schools, and government multiply their impact while fostering community ownership of sustainability initiatives.
The episode concludes with a powerful reminder that resonates whether you live in Durant or anywhere else: "You can actually make a difference. You can pick up a piece of trash, and that will make a difference. If you join a friend, you can make a bigger difference." It's these individual actions, multiplied across a community, that create lasting transformation and protect our shared environment for generations to come.
The one thing that I would want someone who's maybe listening to this program to take with them from this conversation is that Welcome to the F3 Podcast, where faith, family and finance come together Real talk, real stories and practical wisdom to help you grow in every area of life. My name is Derek Hines, I'm a partner here at Gattis Premier Wealth Advisors and we have the pleasure of having Donna Murphy and Mark Massidi-Miller with us today. Thanks for joining us, thank you. Yeah, well, it's awesome to have you guys. So tell me a little bit about how you guys got to Durant Go ahead, don.
Speaker 3:Well, I'm a native of Norman, oklahoma. Okay, so I spent I'm sorry, I know I grew up there. Did you graduate from OU? I did Okay, and I worked there for 22 years. Okay, the university. And then one day I decided to live in an adventure. So I took a job on the East Coast and was there for a number of years, working in Connecticut and New York.
Speaker 2:What'd you do on the East Coast?
Speaker 3:I worked for Save the Children for about five years and then I worked for another international nonprofit in New York City, commuted in for a year and a half, and then I took a job at Tulane University in New Orleans, okay, and lived through Katrina.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 3:And then ended up ending my career at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Okay, but my twin sons ended up in Durant and have a business here, and my six grandchildren. So when we retired, we well, we've been spending a lot of time in this area anyway, but we bought a house here seven years ago and about three years ago it became our permanent residence.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what brought your sons to Durant?
Speaker 3:One of them went to school at Southeastern and got married and stayed, stayed here and then his brother was in the marines and when he got out of the marines he started a business uh, boat repair business in durant and then it grew into a dealership and so that's how they're all here, do they?
Speaker 2:do they both work at the dealership? Yes, okay, yes, the whole family pretty much yeah.
Speaker 3:And what? What dealership is that?
Speaker 2:uh, tadpoles marine. Okay, I have heard of tadpoles. Yeah, it's fun.
Speaker 3:I didn't know that, and mark's a great sport. So he left the balmy, beautiful weather of california, santa cruz uh, to experience Durant.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what's the weather? I mean the weather in California. What is it like between 60 and 75? It's very boring.
Speaker 1:Yeah, very boring Sunny, never cold, never hot. It's perfect all the time. Yep, actually I lived in Santa Cruz. So I grew up in the Bay Area, in San Francisco Bay Area, and after I graduated college I went to Santa Cruz, which is where I used to cut high school and go to the beach, and so I got a job in what I thought was paradise and turned out to be paradise for me. Yeah, and I started a civil engineering practice there and had that for 27 years and sold that practice to my two senior engineers and they were happy, and I that practice to my two senior engineers and they were happy and I was happy and my clients were happy and all the employees were happy. Yeah, but the main thing I did was near the end of my careers. I married well and I married Donna. Both Donna and I are widows and we met during that sort of experience and fell in love and, like I say around here, I married well. I married an Okie.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Well, that's what, like we were talking before the podcast, that's what brought me to Duran as well. Is my wife? Yeah, and that's the best right, Yep.
Speaker 1:They have a way of taking us places. Yeah, good thing. And I had never, you know, I'd spent basically my whole life in the Bay area and Santa Cruz, which are, you know, 30 miles apart, uh, two different environments but, you know, separated by the, by the coastal range of mountains. Um, but I really have fell in love with Durant. I just think the people are great and the small town world is really a lovely world. It's a really different experience.
Speaker 1:You know, like, yeah, I've been a civil engineer, so I spent a lot of my career getting permits for projects and, you know, getting things built. And you know, permits in Santa Cruz, or, you know, no one gets a permit in less than three months. And you know, when we bought our house, the garage was falling down and so I applied for a permit to tear the garage down and build a new one and add a few other things. And I put the plans in at 1.30 in the afternoon on a Friday and I figured, you know, I'd see him some other some long time in the future. And at 4.30, I gota call your permit's ready to pick up and I was like, well, who are you? You must be mistaken, you must. And they said no, and I said, okay, I'll be down to pick up my permit. I was just stunned and so you know that's the difference. Yeah, that's the difference. It's just a much easier way to navigate. Yeah, your place to navigate and get stuff done and fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So what have been some of the other big realizations or differences between moving from, like, santa Cruz to Durant? Well, I think that I think the biggest one is just the the scale of things. So I lived in Santa Cruz 65,000 people, but it's in the middle of a quarter million people, so it's, you know, santa Cruz is next to Capitol, next to Y. You know everything blends together. Yeah, and that's a relatively small community as far as it goes, but here it's like this is it? And you know there's nothing else around. Yeah, and you know, and people think nothing of jumping in their car and driving two or three hours and, like in Santa Cruz, it's unheard of, you know, to drive an hour would be an extraordinary thing, you know, because everything you need is within 15 or 20 minutes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so it's culturally very different. Also, yeah, the food is different. I miss, honestly, I miss the good bakeries. Yeah, you know, I have sweet tooths and I love bread and to find that hard crusty bread and that kind of that. Really, there's a few spots, you know, that have really good stuff here in Dorian, but it's not well, it's not everywhere.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'll have to give you a contact before I leave, please. We have a bread lady, oh, and we usually get two loaves a week, mainly sourdough, oh yeah, but it is phenomenal.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's good, I'm not leaving without that contact.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know how thick of a crust, so I like a really thick, hard crust, chewy, chewy crust Yep, that's what I like. My wife is more of like a Wonder Bread kind of person. She's like soft, squishy bread, yeah, but she does a really good job of making the individual like just a good sourdough loaf with a good crust. It's still. It's still, you know, light and soft on the inside and it's good. Yeah, jalapeno cheddar sourdough last week, it's really good for breakfast.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm in, okay, okay.
Speaker 2:I'll get you the contact. The bread lady, yep, the bread lady. You pick it up at her house, perf, yep, small town. I love it. I'm learning more. Yeah, so you know, I know you guys have Durant Sustainability Coalition Yep, correct Yep. So tell me a little bit about that.
Speaker 1:Well, that is a great story. When we really started to get more engaged in the community, probably four or five years ago, we were finding ourselves after we retired. So once we retired we spent a lot more time here, which is kind of why we bought the house. We were like a hotel for a week is fine, hotel for a month not so good. So that was kind of the beginning. And then as we spent more time here, we got to know more people and the community that we got to know were very much like us in a sense. I guess you find your people, right. You find your people wherever you are.
Speaker 1:And we decided to do what we called an environmental meet and greet. And Kara Bird, who was on here just before we were apparently today, and Libby Calico and Brian Martin and a few other key leaders in the community, we said, well, why don't we do an environmental meet and greet? Invite everybody you know, and we'll have it at the Massey building right next door here to your building. We said we'll just put on an event. And it was like February I can't remember the one of the coldest days of the year. There was ice and snow on the roads and 75 people showed up, wow, and we were like what? That's a pretty big turnout for Durant.
Speaker 1:It is. That's a big turnout.
Speaker 2:Especially to talk about environmental things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we called it environmental meeting. We wanted to meet environmentally minded people, you know, people who cared about the environment. And so after that we were all kind of stunned and we regrouped a few weeks later and we kind of said, oh, what should we do? What should we do about this? Well, there was about five or six of us, I think that by that summer, by that, you know, april, may, somewhere in there we said, well, we should just start a group, we should just start a group. And so we started a group and we said we would just do educational events. And so we committed to trying to do, you know, once a month it didn't really work out that way, but roughly once a month we would bring in some kind of you know, expert to talk about some topic of interest. And so we had our kickoff event that fall in September.
Speaker 3:Which was really interesting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we had Catherine Hayhoe. Dr Catherine Hayhoe was here and she just won an award at Austin College last Friday, thursday, thursday Just last week Thursday she was honored there and she had done a virtual event. So we had some virtual meeting. We had local panelists, choctaw Nation, southeastern and Libby Calico with the Green Grand Herald School, and that was our kickoff event. We had like 75 people showed up again and we're like holy cow, I mean there's really something going on here.
Speaker 1:And so we kept having these events and kept talking to people and it turns out that people actually do care about the environment and we don't call ourselves environmentalists, we call ourselves the Durant Sustainability Coalition. We're seeking a more sustainable future and that seemed to resonate the idea of creating a more sustainable um future, something where you know you're not robbing Peter to pay Paul, you know you're kind of um protecting your children and your grandchildren's futures. Those values resonated in the community. I think that's really what we found was that people they love their children and they love their grandchildren and they're thinking about the legacy that they're going to leave, and so and people care about the great outdoors. You know, like people care about hunting and fishing and they want clean water and they want clean air, and so you know how you get those things and you can pass those things on to your children and your grandchildren, because most people can remember the time when they were children and things are very different now and so things have not been managed sustainably. This idea of good stewardship. There's a lot of values that this community holds near and dear to their heart that we connected with, and we meaning Durant Sustainability Coalition.
Speaker 1:It's not just us, it's not just us. There's we have, you know, we had five or six founding board members and, and so we have. We're a coalition. So we have other partners, for example, durant Trails and Open Space. Yeah, they're a partner organization of ours. We work together on things to make our community more sustainable, to improve the quality of life. Yeah, and those are the things that we found in common. We were touching the heart and soul of this community. Yeah, that's awesome, it was powerful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so what are some things just even personally that you guys do to encourage sustainability.
Speaker 3:Well, the organization we focus on, you know, practical things but also informative things. Yeah, and our topics have included everything from organic gardening, how to do backyard gardens, how, you know, bird-friendly Durant. We did two sessions on water so to educate people on where our water comes from in Durant and the aquifer whether. Well, yeah, it's the Blue River, but the Blue River sources the Arbuckle-Simpson Aquifer and people have this idea that it's very plentiful and not at risk. But in truth there are threats to it. There have been and they still remain. What are some of the threats it? There have been and they still remain. What are some of the threats?
Speaker 3:Well, a few years ago, the aquifer, which is, you know, up near Tishomingo, in that area, actually a rancher had made a contract with communities outside of Oklahoma City to sell millions of gallons of water to them and that it was totally unregulated. So there's no way to know how that impacts the aquifer. But a small group of women in the early 1970s, women in Ada, oklahoma, had on their own. It was a little. It was a suroptimist club. A what Suroptimist club.
Speaker 2:I've learned that's a new word for me for the day. Yeah, what does that mean?
Speaker 3:It's like a civic organization. Suroptimist yeah, the suroptimist like the optimist.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's awesome, like the Rotary or something, right.
Speaker 3:But they petitioned the US government at that time the EPA had just been formed to make the Arbuckle-Simpson a sole source aquifer, which is a very specific definition that says that it is the only source of water for the region that it provides water for, and so it provides water for, and so it was designated that. Decades went by. No one ever needed it or used it until this people started learning that someone was gonna tap this and just sell it, and so then they began. People along the Blue River and along who lived in the aquifer said wait, you know, especially ranchers In fact I think it was driven a lot by some of the ranching and farming communities became concerned get a pause on it, because there's really no way legally they could prevent this except because it was a sole source aquifer. They were able to get studies to show, so they had a baseline to know where how much water was in the aquifer and be able to measure if that and the rivers. So it was I. You know I'm not an expert this, but I learned a lot during this process of offering our program that they were able eventually to prevent that sale of water, and so at least the river is monitored, the aquifer is somewhat monitored, but that organization still exists, that's working to protect the aquifer. And then the Blue River Foundation exists in Tishomingo, which is very concerned about the integrity of the water quality, the flow.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and you know there are priorities of who gets water, of course, certainly where you are in the sea when you got your water rights, yes, so Durant has its water rights in relationship to other communities, yeah, and the fishery and other things. So if there are problems, you know your water supply. Yeah, you have priority, may not, or you may not have priorities. Yeah, we should all care about it. Yeah, and so that's the kind of thing. And, in addition to having our public meetings, we use the opportunity to convene privately some of the business leaders and government leaders and others who had a stake, like the water districts, rural water, two and three, to come together in a room and just talk about the issues and how we work together.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a big issue. So when I lived in New Mexico working for the oil and gas company the water rights is a big topic and I got to participate oh, slipping, sorry, there you slipping, sorry, there you go there. Okay, I got to participate in a statewide leadership program and so they went over water rights and obviously in the desert Right, it's a big deal. I still remember the professor. One of his quotes was whiskeys for drinking and waters for fighting. Fighting, yeah, yep, and we don't think about that a lot here because we get so much rain that a lot of times water doesn't seem to be an issue. But I mean, if we ran out of drinking water, it would be a real issue, right, and droughts?
Speaker 1:are possible. They are now and they've occurred in the past and they will occur again in the future. Yeah, will occur again in the future. And that awareness, you know part of what we have found in our work, in our lives. You know, as we've gotten to this point in our lives we're a little older the most important thing is to have a conversation about a topic. So if you're talking about the water situation, the fact that you're talking about it is gonna help prevent any problems from arising. Correct, it's an awareness thing.
Speaker 1:So one of our favorite philosophers, you know he talks about awareness, awareness, awareness, you know like that's the most important thing. So our mission, you know our goal, with the Durant Sustainability Coalition that we've adopted as a board, is to educate and energize. That's what we're about. So we wanna make sure that the topics that are important to the people in Durant are the topics we're talking about and we wanna get informed, expert opinions about those things, whatever they might be, whether it's canning or pollinators or Yatter, these are the things that are important. So we had an event last fall. We called it Land, Water and Air. It's like okay, is there anything else?
Speaker 3:We were really fortunate. We got the head of the EPA for the Not EPA for the Department of Environmental and Energy Energy, yeah, from the state to come down here to Durant and we got the head of the Choctaw Nation's Environmental Protection Services and they really pretty much control, you know the policy and you know following through and not, you know, just making sure that our water, our land and our air is safe. And when I was inviting some other panelists to join us in a discussion afterward, one of them said wow, y'all must have real influence if you got the head of the secretary for the environment here and I said, well, we didn't know we did, but we're very delighted he actually came down. But, as Mark said, you know we do certain educational programs. Many of them are just fun. We've done recyclable fashion shows. We teach people recycling. But as an organization we also have focused on four primary kind of overarching areas of interest.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, Number one is mobility. You know we're very interested in providing ways of people to get around the community that doesn't rely on an automobile. That's one of the things that we've done with the Durant Trails, and Open Space is partner on different kinds of mobility projects, and we came in on the tail end of the Chukwa Bridge Crooked Smile Trail project. We were grateful that we were able to get involved with that at the end, but we're already looking ahead at 5th and 6th Street. You might've been closer to the middle. Well, I think you know, actually, by the time we got deeply involved it was, you know, we I think in a sense we were able to be part of the group that you know pushed it over the goal line. I think that's kind of how it feels to me anyway, yeah, we appreciate the help.
Speaker 1:But what a what a great project. And those are the kinds of projects you know and I think everybody in the in the community is recognizing how popular that trail has suddenly become because you can get to it. And we think the next project which I know Durant Trails and Open Space and Durant Sustainability Coalition are already laying the groundwork for is the 5th and 6th Street corridor Connecting that university up there to our downtown and two parks and two schools and the Boys and Girls Club with a place where you can walk and ride. And it's like safe routes to schools, safe routes to downtown, safe routes to parks, safe routes to shopping. It's like this is how you make long-term strategic investment that improves the quality of life and makes the community more sustainable.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the chamber had like a round table sort of feedback group that Southeastern is facilitating and at the end of it the professor just was curious. And there were, there were a couple of college students in the room that were taking notes and sort of auditing the uh, the um, the session that we had, and he, he actually asked them. So when's the last time either of you were downtown? They never go downtown.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Never they. They couldn't remember the last time they had they had been downtown, and isn't that so indicative of they'd been downtown? And isn't that so indicative of? I mean, we need an easy route to downtown. It's a mile yeah.
Speaker 1:You could walk it in 15 minutes yeah.
Speaker 2:Especially if you had a bicycle. It's what? Five, five minutes and a bike? Yeah.
Speaker 1:But there's no route, there is no place that feels safe for people to travel on, and so then people don't use it, people don't walk why there's no place to walk. We're doing a walkability survey right now. We partnered with Durant Trails and Open Space. Again, there's no sidewalks, and so we're just trying to get people to take a walk. Take a walk anywhere you want, just report what you see. We're going to collect that information and then we're gonna analyze it and we're gonna say, okay, now when we go to apply for funding, we can say, yeah, we surveyed our community and here's what we found and that moves us to the top of the list for the funders. Right, because they wanna put money where it has the most impact.
Speaker 1:Yes, and so when we find that organization that wants to improve the walkability and maybe that's T-SAT or maybe that's some other group, we don't know, but we'll have the data in our back pocket and ready to put it on the table and say, hey, we need. Hopefully that'll make a difference, and it will. It will. We're having the conversation about it. Things are gonna change because we're talking about things. That's why it's so important to have these conversations.
Speaker 3:So the other three priorities, I think you should take the trees, yeah, the tree canopy, the urban tree canopy is one of our focused areas and we started with kind of a we had a tree program in the fall of 23.
Speaker 2:I want to get so, while you're on this, I would love a tree. Oh, out front, we used to. We, you're gonna get one, you're gonna get one. There used to be a tree, yeah, you're gonna get one, but it got cut down that's right, the well go ahead, yeah, yeah so anyway, we we've been.
Speaker 3:You know, as you drive around town, if you look, especially in our commercial areas, I've noticed some of them. There are just really asphalt deserts, yeah, and really it kind of saps your energy when you, if you're trying to walk that area, you just don't want to, and then you drive and it's just so. Anyway, we decided that we wanted to do something about that, so we started a. One tree makes a different test in last year, so in late September we planted a tree at Greenspray Yep, that's the one I've noticed yeah, and so we worked with the owners and they're very great because that corner had no greenery at all, yeah, and so we have one tree there and delighted. But we wanted to expand the program. What we discovered is removing asphalt or pavement is expensive, and so we had to think about how we wanted to accomplish expansion of this. But we applied for a grant with T-Mobile. We got eight organizations and individuals to write letters of this. But we applied for a grant with T-Mobile. We got eight organizations and individuals to write letters of support, which I think was a really critical factor, because they like collaborations and they want things to happen and they want them to happen pretty quickly. So we were funded worth $35,000 to put trees on Main Street, first Avenue and University Boulevard.
Speaker 3:Okay, someone said the other day they thought that would buy a lot of trees, but the truth is Not big trees, not big trees and not installing them. Yeah, want. In our proposal to them we said we wanted to create a space, a kind of a sense of place, so that people will stop and linger and shop and, you know, talk and build community. So the easy ones are going to be the five empty tree slots on the historical downtown center, which one of them is in front of yours. Yeah, so we're working with the Main Street Association and they're actually have selected the tree types they want. So it's now just getting working through the process and those should go in pretty quickly. We've walked university there is a lot of opportunity on a university but we've not met with any of the businesses. Obviously, we have to work with the landowners and the businesses. So we're hoping that process will unfold and that we'll come up with something really meaningful somewhere along that strip and we also worked first street, a portion of university.
Speaker 2:Is that what you're talking about?
Speaker 3:Recently, you know, along on the other side of the, on the side of the highway, west University, where the road was redone, yep, there's a lot of blank canvas to work with. Opportunity, yep there you go.
Speaker 3:And so we're looking for ideas and ways to move that forward. And then on, first to the same, we think we might want to just expand in that area near where green spray is, to make that a more impactful area. Yeah, but we, you know, so we as a, and we have an advisory team that's helping us with this process. And if anyone wants to really lend their thinking to that and we have an advisory team that's helping us with this process and if anyone wants to really lend their thinking to that, we're welcome. Yeah, but we will probably do those bigger ones in the fall. But we have a list to give us time, more time for planning. Yeah, but we'll work with any business that wants to share some of the expense. And you know, expand this, make, make all of these streets inviting yeah, well.
Speaker 2:I love trees. I don't know if I've ever told you while we've planted a small orchard at our house. Oh wonderful.
Speaker 1:I had some Georgia peaches coming to Oklahoma.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, peaches Pear apple. I planted some persimmons, but they didn't. No, no, peaches Pear apple. I planted some persimmons, but they didn't make it. So pear apple, zombie fruit, which is a Chinese mulberry, wow. And then we had a friend of ours give us some clippings off of his trees, and so we've got these little pots in our backyard. I've got pomegranate, fig mulberry, and then some elderberries, which that's not a tree, but Apricot.
Speaker 2:No, apricot. No, I may have to expand my options, but peaches are really hard. So most of the I don't know the variety of the type I got from my friend, but all the other ones are more like heritage type varieties. They're semi-dwarf, they've been grafted onto like a hardier rootstock and really excited about it and we live on a little farm Right. So we've got chickens and dogs and we're looking to expand our animals here. Pretty quick, we talked about lamb.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:Lamb. Yeah, they said a funny, we tried to. We had a dinner with some friends and lamb was on the menu, so we tried to find some lamb. My wife called all of the places where you would get lamb and they actually recommended. This is what's funny. They said well, call Freedom Maker Farms, you know they, they have lamb. They do. Well, no, no, Cause we provided it to them. So I was like, well, I can tell you for sure, Like they're, they're sold out, they're lamb. So, yeah, we used to. So that that's my wife's sister.
Speaker 3:Oh, really Sarah.
Speaker 2:Sarah, yeah, so Sarah, rowland, carol Hines, they were both cooks, oh, and so we met and Rowland was a good friend of mine in college. Oh good, she's a small town. Yeah, they actually went to New Mexico with us. They moved to new mexico and then they moved to oh, that's when I knew they moved back here. Yeah, then they moved to colorado and evan worked on a ranch and then he moved back to oklahoma did you guys move back at the same time?
Speaker 2:no, we took different. We moved out there kind of close to the same time, but we but we took different paths back. Okay.
Speaker 1:But here you are, yep, here we are, here you are, the sisters reunited.
Speaker 2:That's right, yeah, yeah, yeah. So mobility trees, what are the other two?
Speaker 1:Recycling is the other big one. So you know, I just wanted to make sure that this tree idea grew out of a program we put together. We were wondering if people liked trees. So we actually did a program just on trees. So we worked with, we brought in an expert from the Oklahoma Forestry Service who came down from Oklahoma City to talk to the community about trees. We had a contest Most beautiful tree Most. A contest most beautiful tree most. You know beautiful the tremendous.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they called it the tremendous contest. Yeah, and out of that grew this desire yes, we would like to see more trees. Yeah, and so that's where the T-Mobile grant application idea even came from. So when the event occurred to talk about trees, there was all this interest yeah, the opportunity came up, the community was ready, we applied huge support and boom, here we are doing something. So we made the case.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sort of the same thing happened with recycling. So when we came here from California, where I'm from recycling everyone recycles, it's built in right. And when we got here like Curbside yeah, people were saying, yeah, we don't have it. I'm like, huh, that's weird. But people we talked to from elsewhere said, oh yeah, we had it in Dallas, or we had it in Palma City or we had it in wherever the other people were coming from. Everybody else had it. And we talked to people here would you like to have it? We just said we did a peak.
Speaker 1:One of our board members is actually the director of the recycling center at the Choctaw Center and they actually do all the recycling. So the recycling bins you see around town, owned and operated by the Choctaw Nation they pick them up and they take them back to their recycling center and they sort all the material and they recycle. And so we had a program on recycling. Does anybody else wanna recycle? Wow, I mean we found out, yes, lots of people wanted to. So we thought, okay, let's gauge the broader interest, because we're attracting kind of our own kind, we're, you know, amongst our own tribe. Of course everybody wants to recycle, yeah. So we did a three question survey little postcard, start handing them out, like just to random people we had the farmer's market, the out downtown hand just hand them. And we, and so we collected all these responses. Like 80% of the people like, yes, I would love curbside recycling, yes, I'd be willing to pay for it. So you know a little something.
Speaker 1:So we took all this information and we went to the city and we say, hey, you know, look. And they said we can't do it. You know we don't have the money. You know whatever, we, you know we, it's politically unpopular. You know whatever. And like okay.
Speaker 1:But Stuart Hoffman said wow, I like what you guys are doing. I think I'll do a curbside recycling program by subscription. So it took a while for him to kind of figure it all out. But now there's curbside recycling in Durant and Calera and some other places around here and Stuart's crew comes by and he'll give you a cart, puts it at your house and for $20 a month you can have curbside recycling while you're at your house and we're like, yes, that's awesome. We're so excited. But we still want the rest of the city. We love the victory right, we love the process, we love the road along the way and it's great to see these transformations happening and they're being embraced. But we won't be satisfied until we have curbside recycling for everybody, because it'll make a huge difference. Saves a truck trip every. There's six trucks that go every day to Ardmore to dispose of the trash that's collected here in Durant. We would eliminate one truck every single day. Wow, it'd be just a phenomenal change.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's not going into a landfill either.
Speaker 1:Not going into the landfill and being reused rather than mining new, fresh material. I mean, the case for recycling is strong, yeah, but that's another one of our initiatives, yeah, so that's the last one.
Speaker 3:And then the final is keep Durant clean and green. So we've been serving as kind of the chamber's Keep Durant Clean committee and we have helped them with a big trash off. But what we really want to start up again. We have plans. We're in the process of redoing this, but last year once a month we did a one hour trash pickup, you know, and we would identify an area of the city. We invite anyone who wanted to come. We had people from seven to 70 picking up trash for one hour at a location, and so that's part of our goal is to organize and work with the city and other interested people to clean up the city.
Speaker 2:Yeah, how do you advertise that Facebook Facebook? Yeah, how do you advertise that Facebook?
Speaker 1:Facebook. Wow, we put out an event and advertise and we have the Girl Scouts have been a big part of that. They are committed to helping us and so they show up with they've got there's a couple of different I don't know how the Girl Scouts are like troops of Girl Scouts, yeah, and so they'll show up and there'll be a 10 of those. You know, girls run around with their brothers or sisters or whatever, and yeah, you know, it's amazing how much you can do in an hour. Oh, it's incredible. Yeah, it just really makes a difference, yeah, and so we wanna do more of that.
Speaker 1:The other big thing that we have started is the Earth Day Festival. Yep, we had our first one last year. It was a rainy day and we still had 300 people to show up and 23 vendors, and fortunately we didn't get a lot of rain between about noon and two. So we got a chance to do an opening ceremony with the Choctaw Nation and our vice mayor came and read a proclamation and some other things. And this year we're planning on it'll be a week from this Saturday, so on the 20th, 26th, 26th, thank you, I'm glad one of us has.
Speaker 1:20th is Sunday. Did I say the 26th or the 20th. No, I said the 26th, let's be clear 26th. And so we're excited about that and we're working with probably I don't know another dozen organizations called Elaboration, durant Trails and OvaSpace will be there. They signed up for a booth, so the focus will be on gathering together the community of people who care about sustainability and wanna talk about what their little corner of the world looks like. So we have people that come and talk about pollinators. Their whole world is pollinators.
Speaker 2:Who do you have coming to talk about that?
Speaker 1:That's Lucille Morehouse. She was Bee Box, but she had to change her name for other reasons, but anyway, she's a 15-year-old genius, okay, and she is gonna transform the world and make it more bee friendly, as you probably many people know, but bees are being threatened. They're essential to support our farmers and our crops. Without bees, we don't eat, no, and so keeping them alive and sustaining that and growing that bee population for the future, that's one of the things we believe in, that many indigenous people, including the Choctaw, they have a, and it's biblical and it goes back to the Old Testament times. There's the idea of seven generations. The decisions we are making today are not just gonna affect us. They're gonna affect seven generations downstream, and so when we make decisions about our resources and how to protect our water and our air, we need to think not just about ourselves, but about the seven generations from now. The things we're doing are gonna affect them, and we need to think about that today, and so that's one of the principles that guides our work.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a good. I think I heard this when I was in New Mexico. So we don't it's a native American quote or proverb. We don't inherit the land from our parents or grandparents. We borrow it from our children and grandchildren. Right, you know? We really do. We're leaving something behind for them, amen, amen.
Speaker 1:That stewardship principle it is Is crucial, yeah, and that's how we're gonna nurture the future. Yeah, we're gonna nurture the earth, yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, there's nothing better than honey. I love the biblical example because I mean it's the land of milk and honey, like there's just there's something to it. And you mentioned the bread. There's nothing better A fresh loaf of bread.
Speaker 3:With a little hot honey yeah with butter and honey.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's hard to beat. We have some friends we're actually connected to several people that keep bees. We're redoing the fence on our property so they removed the bees last year. We're hoping to get them back soon, but we'll get jars of honey from the bees on our property. Nothing better, there's nothing better. Nothing better, there's nothing better.
Speaker 3:So I think that's what we've discovered when we started the Durant Sustainability Coalition is that people love this lifestyle. I mean, it's an outdoor lifestyle in Oklahoma. You fish, you hunt, you hike and you take pictures of birds, you grow your own garden, you raise bees, yeah, and people like it and they want it. So it's really not a political issue. It's what we discovered is people. It's just coming back to our roots, yeah.
Speaker 2:And it's really a perspective thing. It's not political, it's just perspective or awareness.
Speaker 1:Awareness.
Speaker 3:And so we've been having a great time and we discovered that it really ties in with quality of life in the community as well. As we talked about recycling, it really becomes a city issue as well. And as you talk about water, it's really how we you know how much we pay for it, where it comes from. Our infrastructure is all really important to protecting, making sure it's clean and safe, and so you know when you hear Durant, sustainability Coalition like you said, that it can be misconstrued as something that's political, right, like pushing an agenda.
Speaker 2:But the correlation, the connection that you've made is to, you know, like enjoying the outdoors and living off the land, and mobility and movement. And who doesn't like trees and honey and gardening? I mean I just I love you know I'm, you know we've been very intentional in the home that we've created, but here we have chickens that free range around our yard. We have large guard dogs that protect the chickens and don't mess with the, don't mess with it. That's, that's a, that's a pretty uh. There's a tension there to manage, like with the type of dog that you have, but it really is. I mean, it really is beautiful. You know, our dogs will they'll, they'll start barking and they'll run off just randomly. And they're barking at birds, like you know, vultures and things that would, you know, kill our chickens, and they're running after them, protecting them, doing their job, doing their job, doing their job. Yeah, we have a duck too, which we can. She's more of a nuisance.
Speaker 1:You know. The thing I'd also like to add is that all of this, all of the things we're talking about today, are wrapped up in the word sustainable. Yeah, and sustainability is a way of being in the world, and it's not just about the birds and the bees and the flowers and the trees. It's about financial sustainability, yeah, and if you are a good steward of the world around you, you're also gonna be a good steward of the financial resources that you have. Yeah, the two cannot be separated. I agree, financial sustainability is the same thing as sustainability. You cannot divorce them, and that is one of the principles that really resonates with people. When the awareness, when the light bulb goes off, yeah, and people go oh, I see, it's not just about recycling, yeah, it's about reusing and saving things, yeah, and guess what? It saves money. That valuable resource that we all need need that valuable resource that we all need, yeah, right, yeah, a good quality of life, yeah, it's essential, yes, and so that's why we always like to, we never want to leave that financial sustainability piece out.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, we, you know. You know I mentioned how I got into this career was teaching financial literacy courses, and it's always funny, you know, it's kind of like a chicken and the egg thing. So in teaching you know those foundational financial principles of you know good stewardship and living within your means, and it's amazing the fruit that comes out of that, because a lot of times people learn how to do a budget with their spouse. Well, we've just created, we've just taught them, conflict resolution at the lowest level, but from that comes a healthy marriage. And then when they start, you know, managing their budget and watching their finances, a lot of times they start making wiser decisions in other areas of their life. So a lot of times they get healthier. And so there's all these, all these peripheral benefits from you know just being a good steward.
Speaker 1:Yep Can't get stirred. Yeah, being aware, yes, yes, aware yeah.
Speaker 2:I love, I love, I love the uh, the thought of awareness. We, we did a, we did a leadership course. Uh, last year me and a friend collaborated on it and really most of it was just around self-awareness. And we started with I don't know if you guys are familiar with, like maps of meaning or the hero's journey, but you know.
Speaker 2:So, if I was to you know, if we were to look at a map of Durant, is that Durant? No, it's just, it's a representation of Durant, right? And so we all have these maps of meanings in our, in our minds. We construct these maps in our heads and we convince ourselves that the map is the real thing. And you can only start to question that through, through awareness. And the same thing with sustainability and Durant trails and open space and finances, like, we all have these limiting beliefs that we, that we believe or have believed at some point in the past, and unless we have awareness, we can't we can't question that or even begin to shift our perspective around that area. So I love, I love what you talk about with awareness, because it really is the first step.
Speaker 1:That's how you actualize the future Exactly. Is being aware of the actions you're taking today will lead you into that future that you are thinking about? That's right, yeah, so collaboration.
Speaker 2:That's right. Yeah, and I love the collaboration piece. So in this small group that we had at the college, one of the things that I found most interesting is just the need for more collaboration. Would say it's probably not like Durant's not unique in this aspect, but you have a lot of entities that are driving towards the same, the same goal or the same objective, but they're splintered. It's like, well, our group needs to be the one to accomplish this or our group needs to control this, and I do think that you know, with Durant Trails and Open Space and what you guys are doing with the Sustainability Coalition, you know I don't know if this is a quote or where I heard this, but I think we would all be surprised at what we could accomplish if we didn't care who got the credit. Amen. So, because it's not about Durant Trails and Open Space, gas, it's like what can we do to better our community? And we have to have more collaboration.
Speaker 1:And that's why we love working with design. Yeah, because you say you really get it. It's not about who gets the credit, no, it's about making a difference. That's right. It's about, you know, creating the future that we want. It's about thinking about our children, our grandchildren yeah.
Speaker 3:So go ahead, donna. Well, all I was going to say is there is not a program or a project that we do, that we do alone, not yet Never. You know every. And we found great partners the, the city. You know the city parks. You know we rely on them for so much and we hope to give, you know, give back to them. Yes, in fact, we hope to give back to them. In fact we're doing a program with them. Our May program is with the city parks and we're going to Shuler Park, which is downtown, and try to imagine what that neighborhood park should be like. And there is ideas about maybe trying to do a community garden, you know, but certainly new equipment and it's very central, near schools and other things. So you know, the city staff don't have enough time or bandwidth to do all of this. So the community participation is really important and so we like to help convene those kinds of conversations.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's fantastic Bringing awareness Awareness. So what would you consider sort of the big issues right now in Durant or things that we can impact?
Speaker 1:Ooh.
Speaker 3:Well, part of it is. You know really what our look and feel of our community is like. If every Mark and I had a conversation today, you know we walked to and from the gym and we picked up trash on the way, because sometimes you just can't walk past a big piece of styrofoam. You know that's just sitting there. But if every person picked up one piece of the trash a day, that's a lot of trash picked up. Our community can look better. If you plant a tree, if you plant pollinators, that, and then helping the city, helping the city. We want them to not take the short cuts for some of the issues that really need a longer view. And so if the, if the community lets the city know that they're willing to participate and work with them to come up with big solutions to the water leaks. You know it's not blaming anyone, it's how do we work as a community to make the community we want?
Speaker 1:Yes, you know, I'm not sure I have any big, big issues that we can impact today.
Speaker 2:I think maybe the ones we need to bring awareness to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think the awareness is that you can make a difference. Yeah, if I, if I were going, gonna, you know, say the one thing that I would want someone who's maybe listening to this program to take with them from this conversation is that you can actually make a difference. You can pick up a piece of trash, yeah, and that will make a difference, yes. And if you join a friend, you can make a bigger difference. Thank you for that. Yeah. And if you join a friend, you can make a bigger difference. Thank you for that. Yeah. And if you're willing to join a group like the Durant Sustainability Coalition and be a volunteer and willing to put in a little bit more time, you can make an even bigger difference. And together we will make a difference.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we are going to create the future of this community. We're creating it today and we're gonna continue creating it into the well, into the future. So, if you would like to be part of that, we would like you to be part of this and you can make a difference. And I think that's. I don't know where the future. I don't know what it's gonna be like in the future. I don't know what the future is gonna bring, but what I know is that the more people that gather around the table, the more people that have a conversation about the things they care about. The more people talk about it, the better it's going to be. That conversation is the crucial thing, yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, that's incredible. That's a. That's a wonderful note to end on, I think. Yeah, thank you. I can't thank you guys enough for coming on the podcast. Hopefully we can get this out to the listeners and anyone that's willing to listen and get people involved in what you guys are doing. I really appreciate your involvement in our community, your long-term vision and the awareness that you're bringing. So, thank you both. Thank you for doing this. Yeah, thank you for doing this, making people aware.
Speaker 3:Making people aware.
Speaker 1:Making- people aware. Yes, yes, it's our pleasure, it's a pleasure and I would say, you know, just as a closing note, you know it's about it's about loves, yeah, yeah, it's really about love, loving your neighbor. I love it, I love this place, I love the people here. I love this community. I love where this community is going. It's just such a there's an upwelling of positivity here that's palpable, yeah.
Speaker 2:Feels really good. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, yep, that's exciting. Well, thank you guys, thank you, thank you, yep and everyone. Thank you for listening. If you like this podcast, please like and subscribe.
