The only thing that really matters in life are your relationships to other people…happiness is love — full stop.
~George Vaillant, Harvard University
OUR MISSION
Equipping Tulsans to love neighbors and strangers well
We love neighbors and strangers well by bridging relational and resource gaps in our city. We start by inviting people to learn and practice better conversations across divides so that we can do more together. Then we invite people to help and support our community projects addressing food insecurity for households, improving reading levels in struggling schools and offering musician-in-the-school enhancement for K-5th grade students.
Addressing poverty, education gaps, loneliness and fear—or any other community issue is most effective and enduring when people are known and understood. When we love well with our resources, relationships and regard for each other, we can all overcome the barriers that stand between us and living fully.
We welcome everyone who serves to bring your full self to this work. This is a safe space to belong and make a difference regardless of who you are, what you do, where you’ve been or who you love. We invite individuals and groups who resonate with our mission to come along this journey of learning to love well.
CORE VALUES
Collaboration
Creativity
Join forces with others who share our vision to love our community well.
Use our imagination to pioneer new ideas and pathways that help people find their way through struggle and difference.
Coffee
Create safe spaces for belonging around a cup of Joe.
Courage
Model and mentor a culture of healthy feedback and dissent even when it challenges power.
Conversation
Keep listening, learning and talking to each other as long as there are problems to solve and people to love!
LEARN IT
We partner with other organizations to bring workshops/classes/events to our city that help fight toxic polarization which divides our community, fuels violence, and makes progress on critical issues nearly impossible. Our hope is to bring creative vision to collaborative conversations about addressing important needs in our city.
ONE AMERICA
The One America Movement is a nonprofit, non-partisan organization that aims to counteract toxic polarization and promote understanding and cooperation across divides. The One America Movement bridges these divides along political, religious, racial, and geographic lines by bringing people together in dialogue and collaboration. The LoveWell Collective leads a One America program dedicated to countering toxic polarization.
DISAGREEABLE DINNERS
In the very near future, we'll be teaming up with another nonprofit called Disagreeable Dinners. Have we got your attention?!
It may sound a little intimidating, but most of us CAN agree that it's what the world needs right now. Sitting around a table, enjoying a meal, sharing, listening and, most importantly, everyone is invited to have a seat. We'll share good food, practice talking about hard things and hopefully learn a few things about each other.
LIVE IT
Our work is rooted in a desire to tackle poverty, education gaps, loneliness, fear & other community challenges by partnering with innovative thinkers and effective programs.
GROCERY GIVEAWAYS
On the last Sunday of every month, LoveWell Collective provides groceries to ten families who have been referred to us. Groceries include staples like milk, bread, and eggs and a recipe that families can enjoy cooking together. Volunteers plan, shop and help prepare the groceries.
READING TUTORS
Our tutoring program places college students from University Tulsa and other surrounding colleges in classes at Wayman Tisdale Fine Arts Academy with the onsite Reading specialists as Reading Tutors. Through this program, we help students receive more individualized and strategic reading support to help bring them on level for reading before moving on to middle school.
JEFF PORTER MUSIC PROJECT
Led by percussionist, Jeff Porter, this project incorporates percussion, rap, and world rhythms with comedy, dancing, singing, and acting. With Jeff’s dynamic approach, virtuosity on the cajon, and emphasis on positivity, students will learn to meld lyrics with rhythmic body movements and build confidence in rhythmic vocal projection, annunciation, and syncopation set to the poetry of hip hop idols like Q-tip (Tribe Called Quest), Andre 3000, Busta Rhymes, The Fugees, and Kendrick Lamar.
Jeff Porter is a Tulsa native who has traveled the world for the past 25 years and studied music from Cuba, West Africa, Congo, and Brazil, and is a learned percussion master on traditional instruments like congas, batas, pandeiro, djembe, and shekere. He has taught in various capacities for 22 years in Oregon, Colorado, and Oklahoma. This project is available as it is funded.
PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE:
COFFEE HOUSE
In the near future, LoveWell Collective plans to open a pay-as-you-can coffee shop in Northwest Tulsa so that residents can have a safe, accessible space to get free and pay-as-you-can coffee and pastries. It will serve as a meeting space where different residents can cross paths outside their everyday bubbles. It will also be a coworking space for remote workers, provide warmth from the elements for the unhoused, and a shared space for community groups and support all coming together for connection and coffee.
Is your organization doing good things in Tulsa?
We'd love to collaborate with those who share our vision to love our community well!
