Neighbors Cleaning Up Damage, Cooking Food For Tornado Victims In Rogers And Mayes Counties

Some people who have been helping clean up tornado damage in Rogers and Mayes Counties have damage of their own but feel it’s important to help their neighbors.

Many of those people are exhausted from all the days they’ve spent trying to patch up their community, but they have no plans of stopping until everyone is back on their feet.

George Grossman lives in Pryor and organized a group of more than 100 people to help clean up the pastures and yards of strangers.

He wanted to help both people and farm animals that could be hurt by debris.

“When that thing fell apart, it dropped all of that on the two-mile sections there and I knew it all had to be gotten out of there because the animals, if there was any fence left, they were going to be stepping on all that stuff and eating that stuff," Grossman said.

Grossman wants people to know that they are cared about and their community has their back.

He’s spent days connecting people who need help, with people who can help.

“There’s all kinds of different ways to help," said Grossman. "A guy messaged me a little while ago, said he had a 17-year-old boy and a chainsaw, and I know a lady who needs help with the trees in her yard, so I sent them that way.”

People have also been helping serve food by passing out meals, snacks, and water to every person who stops by.

“We’ve got individuals that have been donating food, donating money, if they show up to eat breakfast, half of them are staying and cooking for the whole day," said Allison Dietzfeld. "It’s grown into a huge production and they’re doing an awesome job managing it and keeping it going every single day.”

They say it’s the "Oklahoma Way" to take care of your neighbors, even when you might be going through your own worst day.

“They’re trying to find the light and see what they can do to be that for all those folks out here," said Dietzfeld. "I think it takes a lot of dedication and this time they could just keep on with their every day if they weren’t affected, but they’re choosing to spend every single day. They’re out here at 6 a.m. and staying to feed the linemen that get off at 10 o’clock.”

The people serving food are taking donations of food, water, or money, and those items can be dropped off at the Shipman Animal Hospital on Highway 20.

The group will be serving food out of the Shipman Animal Hospital for the foreseeable future.

Grossman says the best way to get help is to reach out through Facebook.