Big Five Community Services Inc

Causes: Human Service Organizations, Human Services

Mission: Big five was organized under the economic opportunity act of 1964 to cooperate and assist governmental and private agencies to identify, address, and eradicate the causes and conditions of poverty within its service area. Big five provides services such as: head start, workforce development, transportation, weatherization, and developmental disabilities services.

Programs: Head start/early head start program - prepares children from low-income families to succeed in school by providing basic skills. The ages of the children range from 0-5 years old. The goal is to help them improve their readiness for school by helping them grow mentally, socially, emotionally, and physically. This program also provides free meals to improve nutrition and also provides free medical and dental services. A total of 1,785 children, infants, and toddlers were funded, 1,671 head start and 114 early head start, in 105 classrooms of which 38 were in collaboration with public school systems and child care facilities in the 23 couty service area.

developmental disability services division (ddsd) - a fee for service contract with the oklahoma department of human services to provide a variety of services to the mentally and physically disabled to enable the client to function in an independent living mode. This allows the client to be assisted in acquiring, retaining and improving the self-help socialization and adaptive skills necessary to reside successfully in home and community-based settings outside institutional care facilities. A total of 160 persons were serviced in a 41-county area.

transportation program - provides low cost transit services for low-income, elderly, and handicap persons to enhance access to jobs, schools, medical appointments, meal sites, and shopping. This program has a fleet of over 53 vehicles ranging in size from 20-passenger to 4-passenger ada micro buses and over 83% of the fleet is ada equipped. For 2014, there was over 892,744 miles driven to serve 207,142 passenger trips in a 4-county area.