I’m baaaaack!
I hope that everyone had a great summer! Time is flying, and I can’t believe we only have three months left of 2021.
My “vacation” went quickly. To be honest, I really didn’t take time off because I was focused on other things for a bit.
I’m excited to update you on some projects I’ve been thinking about and working on for a while.
Golden Oaks Assisted Living and Memory Care, the 12-bed residential assisted living home that I am a part of with several of you as investors, is doing fairly well. Like most of the country, we are having difficulties with staffing.
Where did all of the people go?
We became a part of a new franchise system, Majestic Residences. It is exciting to be a part of something new, especially in this field, where small, boutique, upscale homes haven’t had a big presence.
Majestic Residences is growing quickly and will compete with larger facilities with advertising and marketing dollars. I believe that the type of care provided by these residential homes will be the future, and it’s best for our elderly due to lower staff-to-resident ratios and the home-like settings.
Oasis Fresh Market, the first full-service grocery store in North Tulsa in over 10 years, is also doing fairly well. We turned a small profit last month after opening only 4 months ago. Again, staffing has been one of the biggest challenges. I have learned quite a bit about the grocery business —I even work as a cashier and stocker every once in a while. We will be opening a small cafe in the store and starting our eCommerce (online ordering and delivery) business soon.
I’ve also worked with other grocery providers in North Tulsa to figure out food delivery to other food deserts. We are considering building out shipping containers as small footprint grocery stores in other food desert areas to determine the viability of putting in a full-service grocery store. We are in the early stages of this conversation, but if we can figure out how to make it work, it will be a great way to potentially get grocery stores in these areas with less risk to the owner/operator.
We are all discovering how important it is to eat well and how much it can improve our health.
The FreshRx program that we host aims to prove that healthy eating can lower hemoglobin A1C, a measure of how well diabetes is controlled. We started with 50 people with uncontrolled diabetes, and we’re providing them with fresh fruits and vegetables every two weeks. 
They also receive instructions on how to prepare food in a more healthy way via an iPad with recipes and live cooking demonstrations along with food samples (once Covid returns to a simmer).
We have been doing this for eight weeks, and we’re just getting our first set of data that will let us know how our participants are doing. We know from other studies that healthy eating that includes fresh produce can improve diabetes control and tremendously decrease the cost of care.
Fruits and vegetables are grown in the ground or indoor controlled farms through hydroponics or aquaponics. I have been working with people in these areas to bring fresh produce closer to those in the midwest.
I am working with Nicole Ragland and RegenOK on soil regeneration projects. This has led me down some interesting paths that I will talk about in an upcoming newsletter.
As you can see, my “vacation” was fun and filled with lots of learning. Stay tuned! In the upcoming weeks, I’ll share how some of these opportunities could be potential investments that may interest you.
