Panelists suggest ways residents can help solve community issues.

Neighbors asking teens to mow their yards, parents inviting children living nearby to be part of their child's sports team and businesses hosting cookouts for area youths may be some solutions to Tulsa's gang problems.

Those were suggestions panel members offered to the question: How can community members reach out and help?

A look at problems and solutions was the focal point of the Oct. 17 East Tulsa Prevention Coalition meeting.

Wilson Conde and others on the panel work with the Tulsa Youth Intervention Project the Community Service Council of Greater Tulsa started through the council's prevention coalition.

"Gang activities are contagious. As they grow, they eat up our communities," Conde said. "I've been in this type of work 30-plus years here and on the East and West coasts. If we don't pay attention to history, it'll bite us again, and that's what is happening."

Conde said he's seen fourth- and fifth-generation gang members.

"We only present a program to counter this in the sixth grade," said Tammara McKinney-Olden, Tulsa Police Department school resource officer. "It needs to start earlier and be in all grades.'"

Conde said parents should be tender with children, but let them know they don't want to be disappointed.

"We're in a negative society with violence in newspapers and movies. Get out of the 'mine, mine, mine' attitude and do positive things with kids," Conde said.

Martin Ramos with the intervention project said he has worked with kids and parents for 14 years.

"Parents go to their young kids' activities at school, but stop when the kids get older," Ramos said. "Continue to be interested in their school activities. Ask them how they are doing."

Ramos said people in the community should serve as mentors. He mentors a graduate of the Thunderbird Youth Academy in Pryor.

Terry Brown, an academy official and panel member, said Thunderbird is a free volunteer program of the Oklahoma National Guard providing high school dropouts an opportunity to gain control over their lives.

Panelist Rodney Gant, introduced as a community activist, said being an example can have a positive influence on youth. "Black men need to be good parents and a positive part of the community," Gant said.

He said he dropped out of school, but at age 21 and still part of a local gang earned his high school diploma.

"Now, I'm trying to influence youth not to get involved with gangs, to help them see there are other opportunities," Gant said.

For more information about the Tulsa Youth Intervention Project, East Tulsa Prevention Coalition or Community Service Council of Greater Tulsa, call 585-5551. For more on Thunderbird Youth Academy, call 824-4850.