Library: News Releases
OKLAHOMA CAPITOL --- O'Reilly Automotive, one of the largest suppliers of automotive aftermarket parts, recently donated $4,000 to the residents of the Deborah Rothe Group Home.
O'Reilly Automotive raised the money for the donation through a yearlong local recycling effort at its Oklahoma City Distribution Center. The donation is a portion of the funds raised by the local Team Activity Committee (TAC), and each year the TAC takes a portion of funds at Christmas and donates to a local charitable group.
The $4,000 donation is the largest contribution the Oklahoma City O'Reilly Automotive Distribution Center TAC has ever made. Officials at the O'Reilly Automotive headquarters in Springfield, Mo., made the final decision on the amount of money available for the donation.
The Deborah Rothe Group Home, founded in 1970, provides long-term group home care for teenage girls in state custody, and is run by the Oklahoma Department of Human Services.
"When I checked my e-mail and it read $500 per child, I about fell out of my chair because they were only going to give us $500 per family – up to three families and that was it," Traci Tackett a return supervisor at the Oklahoma City O'Reilly Automotive Distribution Center, said "This was $500 for each of the eight girls."
Representatives from O'Reilly Automotive presented the donation on Dec. 19 at the Wal-Mart Supercenter, 6100 W. Reno Ave., and then accompanied each girl to help add up the purchases.
"A $500 donation is like a million to a 16-year-old child. You would be blown away, swept away," said Dianne McDaniel, supervisor of the group home. "They were speechless. The generosity of the O'Reilly staff was phenomenal."
The Deborah Rothe Group Home is named in honor of Deborah Ann Rothe, who was a career social worker, administrator for more than three decades at the OKDHS and an outspoken an advocate for Oklahoma children. It accepts OKDHS custody teen girls who are adjudicated deprived.
The program serves to meet each resident's educational, physical and emotional needs. The goal is to give young ladies the life skills they need to integrate themselves into the community and live independently once they are no longer in OKDHS custody.
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