GRANITE, Okla. -- With the right tools – students can achieve anything. And the kids here in Erick, Oklahoma are getting a helping hand. Employees from North Fork Correctional Center presented the school district with a thousand dollar check. Brooke Mitchell said, “On behalf of North Fork, here’s a check for your new Chromebooks.”
This is a longstanding partnership between small towns and Department of Corrections. North Fork in Sayre is a generous and reliable source of revenue for struggling school districts. According to Mitchell, “Any schools in the surrounding area, if they are in need of anything specific we ask them to contact us. We are more than willing to make donations and do our best to help.”
This week, North Fork employees donated nearly two thousand dollars to Erick and Granite school districts.
The fundraisers support all kinds of educational and extracurricular programs. At Granite – there is a rich baseball tradition. $800 will help replace an obsolete score board with state-of-the-art technology.
Inmates from the Faith and Character classes provided money and school supplies. Donations like this have become routine from the folks at North Fork. According to Program Coordinator Brian Johnson, “We like to rotate through the schools because we have a lot of staff in different towns.”
Life’s greatest gifts sometimes come from the people and places you’d least expect. Granite Superintendent David Zachary said, “It’s pretty neat too that we have this group of men up here that are incarcerated but still see the need to help out the people in this area. We appreciate it very much. It’s nice to see people who’ve made a few mistakes but understand that it’s still important for kids to learn. We appreciate everything North Fork does for us. It’s wonderful.”
