Muldrow Cherokee Community Organization members Ethard Smith (left) and Jerry Treat nail boards for the new MCCO community building. (Photo by Will Chavez)

By Will Chavez

Staff Writer

 

MULDROW, Okla. – The first phase of the Muldrow Cherokee Community Organization Center is nearly complete as workers and volunteers focus on the building’s interior.

 

MCCO members and volunteers plan to finish the nearly 4,000-square-foot building in September. The center is located on land donated by the town on State Highway 64B in Muldrow, and MCCO leaders anticipate the building to house community activities.

 

MCCO Treasurer Tim Laney said the Cherokee Nation has helped the organization by providing funding and manpower.

 

“They provided a dozer, a truck and men to help get the (concrete) pad built and the parking lot. They’ve been available for any questions we might have,” he said. “Muldrow needs a shot in the arm. This building has been needed in the community. Maybe other good things will come from this.”

 

He said community members have also assisted the MCCO with completing the building, while donations from area companies are helping furnish the building.

 

Funding to build the steel frame and metal community center came from a $105,000 Cherokee Nation grant and from fundraising done in the community. MCCO leaders said the total cost for the first phase would be $200,000.

 

Much of the work on the building is being done as an in-kind service by community volunteers and by local contractors either donating time or charging reduced fees.

 

“We’ve had a lot of people donate their time for in-kind services. For instance, the man who erected the building did so at little or no cost,” Jennetta Barrow, MCCO marketing director, said.

 

Donations have also been received from the Rheem Company in Fort Smith, Ark., which donated a large air conditioning unit, and the Therma Tru Company from nearby Roland, Okla., which donated nearly $4,000 worth of doors and windows.

 

The Oklahoma Department of Commerce recently provided a $25,000 grant to the group for a parking lot, a handicap-accessible sidewalk and the installation of rails for the new building.

 

Barrow said the MCCO hopes to get word soon to see if it qualified for a $50,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to start work on the building second phase, which would include a similar size building next to the one being built. That phase would provide additional meeting and classroom space.

 

But for now, volunteer laborers are concentrating on finishing the first phase by installing walls and doors along with plumbing to a kitchen and dining area, office space, classrooms and a conference area.

 

Barrow said the MCCO would use the building often, but is also going to offer the building to the community, at a “very low rate,” for family gatherings, birthday parties, meetings and reunions.

 

She said plans are to also use the building for a senior citizen nutrition center, a Cherokee Heritage library with computers and Internet access, computer literacy classes, Cherokee language classes and CN Healthy Nation classes. The health classes, funded by a $5,000 grant from the CN, would help teach community members how to stay fit through exercise and healthier eating. Other instructional classes such as how to can and preserve foods, which Barrow said she recently taught, would go along with a farmers market the MCCO plans to host next summer.