Downtown Pantry
Meet the friendly faces behind Norman’s Downtown Pantry!
What's been going on in your world and circles lately?
Mikelyn Jones: Playing a lot of disc golf and traveling to Colorado.
Lee Hall: Traveling with my husband and caring for my Grandchildren when we are home.
Helen Grant: City of Norman stuff. Don’t forget to vote on Oct 10th on these Bridge Maintenance Bonds.
Nikki Howell: If I’m being real honest, the thing that has been bringing me most joy lately has been the quiet. Every little quiet moment alone has felt like such a gift. I only recently began making note of how nice it feels to have a minute of peaceful solitude. Maybe it’s the season of parenting I’m finding myself in currently 🤔
Cody Giles: As the current Public Arts Committee chair, I am getting to work with a wonderful group of humans try and grow the scope of public art in Norman. We are working to create an excitement for murals matched with funding to incentivize people/business/building owners to invest in them and the artists. We are also working on a VERY cool project that we hope to unveil soon!
Anything in particular you've been working on?
Mikelyn Jones: Knitting, I’m making a hoodie for my kid.
Helen Grant: I’ve been working on painting bisque fired skulls with vibrant glazes .
Lee Hall: I really am working on making sure that we have a working ordinance that allows community fridges to exist in Norman.
Tips, Tricks, Techniques?
Cody Giles: Love people. Listen and hear them. Realize you can’t do everything, but you can do something. Help when you can, ask when you can’t.
Helen Grant: Look for where you can build bridges of common understanding for the greater good, and you can do that by listening with curiosity and meeting people where they are at in life.
Other projects you see happening around that are cool?
Lee Hall: That we are getting a Senior Center aka Adult Wellness Education Center after years of seniors advocating for a nice, new facility.
Mikelyn Jones: I heard we are getting pickleball in Norman soon and I want to try it.
Cody Giles: Love seeing all the efforts to help care for the unhoused community in Norman. Would love for anyone and everyone interested in helping to get a shirt via this Pre-order or consider giving funds by using Venmo @Downtown-Pantry or Cash App $DowntownPantry
Future things you are looking forward to?
Helen Grant: It’s totally a city Nerd thing to say, but hopefully we are passing our Bridge Maintenance Bonds on Oct 10th.
Lee Hall: Having a fun weekend with my Grandkids.
Mikelyn Jones: Our 21st anniversary next month.
Nikki Howell: I’ve been really looking forward to the changing of seasons, and the feeling of nature slowing down and preparing to hibernate (although I realize these instinctually guided feelings are defeated by the capitalistic urge to grind and produce endlessly). We usually go down to our tiny house in the middle of nowhere Texas, and we feel really off the grid. We disconnect from the daily monotony, cook every meal from scratch, and everything back home is just far enough out of reach that if a problem arises, well, it will just have to wait. It’s the best night’s sleep we ever get.
Photo from Norman Music Fest
Cody Giles: I am ALWAYS looking forward to Norman Music Festival! As a member of their board, I am always blown away by the support and love for the festival and love the partnership with Downtown Norman and the humans that make it so great!
Favorite bands / albums lately?
Helen Grant: “The Land is Inhospitable and So Are We” by Mitski, “Heaven is a Junkyard” by Youth Lagoon, “Easy” by Glasser, and “A Lens Turning” by Westerman
Mikelyn Jones: YouTube concerts of past performances, like David Bowie and the Clash and also listening to Shiadanni on TikTok.
Cody Giles: Noah Gundersen: “If This Is The End”,
and Del Water Gap: “I Miss You Already + I Haven’t Left Yet”
Poem?
Cody Giles: “Your Laughter Poem” by Pablo Neruda will always be one of my favorite poems.
Helen Grant: “Because I could not stop for Death” by Emily Dickinson and “Snake” by Leonora Carrington
Art by Barry Zimmerman
Visual artists (or whatever people) you've been digging lately?
Cody Giles: I will never not love seeing everything Barry Zimmerman creates.
Helen Grant: I find myself revisiting Eliana Rodriguez. Some of the messaging in her art, actually why I keep looking her up every so often, is about letting yourself really feel your feelings.
https://instagram.com/eliana_e_rodriguez
Links to anything you're involved in you want to share?
Cody Giles: Always keep your eyes on what the Norman Arts Council is doing. We have so many opportunities for artists, arts organizations, and art lovers all the time!
Anything else?
Helen Grant: I really encourage people to read “Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity Through This Crisis (and the Next)” by Dean Spade. The Downtown Pantry team is committed to learning and practicing key tenants of mutual aid: collective decision-making processes, conflict resolution, and community building.
“Mutual aid is collective coordination to meet each other’s needs, usually from an awareness that the systems we have in place are not going to meet them. Those systems, in fact, have often created the crisis, or are making things worse. We see examples of mutual aid in every single social movement, whether it’s people raising money for workers on strike, setting up a ride-sharing system during the Montgomery Bus Boycott, putting drinking water in the desert for migrants crossing the border, training each other in emergency medicine because ambulance response time in poor neighborhoods is too slow, raising money to pay for abortions for those who can’t afford them, or coordinating letter-writing to prisoners. These are mutual aid projects. They directly meet people’s survival needs, and are based on a shared understanding that the conditions in which we are made to live are unjust.”
For more info, follow The Downtown Pantry on Instagram: Downtown Pantry
or on Facebook: Downtown Pantry
Donate or volunteer if you can!
We currently have a preorder up now featuring the Ward 4 design to raise funds for the Downtown Pantry.
This preorder will be available until Sunday, October 1st. Click here to order!
