Bartlesville community outreach center looking for place to go following tornado

BARTLESVILLE, Okla. — One business that has been serving the community of Bartlesville for 20 years, Casa Hispana, is now looking for a place to go after the damages from the severe weather on Monday night.

Casa Hispana is a community outreach center that the owner said is here to help the Hispanic community in Bartlesville, but after the storms they have to pack up and save what they can.

“We lost all our roofing and the water getting into the store destroyed most of the stuff that we have here. We have a second hand store over there. Here was where we did English second language classes that we partnered with Bartlesville Leadership Counsels,” said Milagros Cappelletti, executive director of Casa Hispana.

Cappelletti said her kids were calling her to warn her about the tornado coming into town on Monday night, but she didn’t understand the severity of the storm at the time.

“Jerry texted me and said ‘I'm sorry, but Casa Hispana was hit by the tornado and it's gone’. I was like what,” Cappelletti said.

She came back to her store that was damaged after taking a hit from Monday night's tornado that ripped through a part of Bartlesville.

“Hopefully we will find something soon, but in the meantime we are going to be doing the same stuff. We serve the Hispanic community with all their needs from A to Z and if I don't know how to do it, we will find a way,” Cappelletti said.

Cappelletti said they will continue to offer their services temporarily from her home and they will continue to have the English classes in the library.

“Everybody is calling and calling and I say don't worry. Give me this week free because I need to organize all this and we will start on Monday. We need to keep going. Twenty years, we are not going to stop. To be here for 20 years was a lot of effort and we have a lot of collaboration with the community, with other agencies. We can't just stop from one day to another, we'll find a way,” Cappelletti said.

While some people in the community have helped take clothes to be washed and Cappelletti has saved what she could. She said she will need all the manpower she can get this Saturday to move the heavier things out of the store.