By Liz McMahan
More than four decades ago, Edna Steel and some of her friends saw the need for serving lunch to those who participated programs at the Douglass Community Center on Indianapolis Street.
Several of the women started preparing lunches from the commodity foods they brought from their homes.
Steel remembers that she would stop by the center on her way to work for a local family.
“I would come down here of a morning before I went to work and wash dishes or peel vegetables or do whatever it took to get the food together for the day,” she said.
She would stop by again on the way home and help get the kitchen cleaned up and ready for the next day.
Except for Steel and Josephine Brackeen, the other women — Alvaretta Sourie, Ethel Jackson, Helen James and Arissa Friend — have since died. Steel is at the center just about every day.
She helps out some, but she’s there more to enjoy the fellowship and to have a hot meal these days.
Steel said that even before the nutrition program began, she attended classes in sewing, upholstery and candle making at the center. She recently gave up a candle she had made there and a rug she crafted from carpet scraps from Nelson’s Furniture when it was downtown.
When Steel and others started preparing meals, Muskogee County Commissioners provided a stove for the program and helped the women become a part of the state’s nutrition program, Steel said.
Editor's note: This story has been modified from its original version to correct an error.
