Yesterday, a touching victory for what I like to call the Army Of Good, people who love liberty and the idea of our country and who have compassion and empathy for people in need.

You good people answered the call. In just a few hours, you raised more than $1,600 to purchase 200 Welcome Bags for the refugee children who will be arriving in the United States shortly. And you transformed the experience of children moving to a new land.

The Welcome Bags are the creation of the Capital Region Refugee Roundtable of Albany, a community of our better angels. They plan to greet newcomer refugee children with a colorful Welcome Tote Bag filled with toys, games, socks, art supplies, stuffed animals, hats and gloves.

As a result of this outpouring of support, the Roundtable raised the goal to $2,500 this morning, in order to purchase additional Welcome Bags and other badly need supplies for the refugees. They need about $800 additional dollars.

I imagine these bags will mean a great children to  these children, some of whom have suffered unimaginable horror and long and hard journeys to get to us. You have sent a powerful message that will travel far beyond this community.

Their arrival in America is now fraught with anxiety and uncertainty, even possible persecution. This will show them our better side, our real truth and identity. Kids love bags full of gifts.

The Roundtable’s goal initially was $1,500. As of this writing the fund had received more than $1,600 or 108 per cent of the goal. Any additional funds will be put to good use, the Roundtable has its hands full struggling to meet the needs of these people, mostly displaced women and children. Resources are scarce and desperately needed.

The refugees are being resettled into the United States by the U.S. Committee for Refugees And Immigrants (USCRI).

People who want to help have two options for contributions, the group’s crowdsourcing page. Or, if you prefer, you can mail a donation to Anne O’Brien Carelli, 17 Reid Place, Belmar, N.Y., 12054.

Maria and I are now volunteers working with the Roundtable, we will soon get to meet a refugee family we will mentor and help as they adjust to America. My goal is to transcend the argument, rage and denigration of the political system and to help create an Army Of Good who are marching to keep the true spirit of America alive.

I want to stand for liberty and compassion, nothing else.

People on all sides of the political divide can support that, I believe, and these immigrants yearning to be free can help bring us together, the need not pull us apart. To me, this is the best kind of non-violent, non divisive response to the conflict in our country. All kinds of people from many different political points of view sent money to help welcome these children to America.

And it feels good at a time when many people are feeling bad.

Very few people in America are free of the immigrant experience, apart from the Native-Americans. Some immigrants chose to come to America, some were forced to come here. But the refugee experience is in our national genes, we have opened our hearts and gates to those weary people, yearning to be free.

These families are not coming here to harm us, but to share in the American Dream, long a hope and a beacon to the world. Thanks for helping these kids. I love the idea of surrounding and protecting these refugees with a wall of love and compassion.

For me, and for Maria, this is just the beginning. I will be sharing this experience with you in words and photos in the hope of using the blog to do good and of showing these refugee families as human beings, not as some unspeakable menace. We do not need arguments and name-calling.

People of conscience have very different ideas about the world, and our country is a big tent. I am hopeful about our country, in part  because of people like you.

Thanks for enlisting in the Army Of Good, and for bringing us our first victory, the first of many.