QuikTrip Truly A 'Safe Place,' Youth Services Of Tulsa Says

We told you earlier this week about a Broken Arrow teenager who ran to a "Safe Place" location at a QuikTrip after an argument with her father.

The Tulsa-based chain is celebrating 25 years of partnering with Youth Services of Tulsa.

Every QuikTrip in Tulsa has a “Safe Place” sign. It announces to kids that it’s safe to come in and ask a clerk for help.

Out of all the places that offer a safe haven, Youth Services says QuikTrips are used the most by children in distress.

“We want all the youth, if they need help they're scared, lost, they don't know where to go, they can come to QuikTrip and we will help them," QT’s Mendi Parker said.

With more than 700 stores, Tulsa's QuikTrip is the largest corporate partner with “Safe Place.”

Parker says all QT clerks are trained on how to get kids help.

“So the interest came from our employees coming in and asking ‘how do we help these kids? Where do we go? Who can we call?’ And so that kind of started a project that started with Chester Cadieux over 25 years ago in starting this legacy at helping at risk youth,” Parker said.

Youth Services says outreach about the program includes everything from classrooms to word of mouth.

"I will speak to anybody who will listen,” Youth Services’ Sarah Beers said. “Because whether or not that person is going to need services for crisis in their childhood, they interact and engage with other people who are 12-17, so empowering the, to get that information to one of their friends or if they're seeing somebody in school who's going through some hard times, they'll have the information to pass along to them too.”

Youth Services says it will have Safe Place volunteers meeting with the community all week especially on Food Truck Wednesday at Guthrie Green.