Amy, a warehouse volunteer working with the U.S. Committee on Refugees and Immigration sent this message yesterday:
“I thought you may enjoy a photo of today’s incoming Amazon Wish List Delivery, “I seldom tear up, but opening these boxes, I find myself overwhelmed and inspired at the generous support for arriving refugees.” Me too.
Your donations have filled the warehouse space and are being stacked in the hallways. The above photo shows the deliveries for Wednesday only.
Thanks again for continuing to support the refugees arriving in my area. They come with nothing, and desperately need everything. The items listed on the special Amazon page are inexpensive, common household items. They make an enormous difference to people arriving in America in the middle of an upstate New York Winter.
You can click on an item, go to the checkout, and Amazon will mail it to the USCRI warehouse. Today, I’m sending a World International Soccer Ball for $7.60. (Sometimes, the USCRI address does not appear. If you don’t mind, try again later. It fixes itself.)
Who are we helping?
“The refugees who are coming are mostly children and they fear for their lives,” said Kathleen Hidalgo, a USCRI volunteer. She has assisted the parents and four children of the Albakour family from Syria who resettled in the Albany area in October after they fled the heavy fighting in the Syrian border town of Azaz in 2012 during the brutal civil war in their country.
“The Syria people are terrified,” she told the Albany Times-Union. “They gave up everything to keep their children alive…”
A number of refugees arrived this week, they need help. They pray to be reunited with their husbands and families one day. They have suffered enough and waited long enough. Correction. Earlier I wrote that each refugee is given $900, and they must pay it back. That is incorrect, and I’m afraid the truth is worse: A one-time amount of $925 per refugee is given to a resettlement agency to use to secure an apartment, pay the first months rent, furnish the home, buy a week’s worth of groceries, and a familiar hot meal (for a family of four, this would be $3,700). Most of the money is spent before the refugees even arrive.
Refugee aid workers are especially worried about Syrian families and other refugees who have remained divided, and are now unable to come to America after the President’s new executive orders on immigration. Some family members are in the United States and others are now trapped in refugee camps in Europe and Turkey awaiting permission to come to the United States.
The refugees are here legally, have been thoroughly investigated and some have waited up to four years to get here.
“Families have been torn apart once by the war and this executive order tears them apart again,” said Jill Peckenpaugh, director of the Albany office of the USCRI. “What happens to them now? They’ve waited years and finally got to the front of the line. Do they go to the back of the line now?”
According to the Times-Union, nearly 100 Syrian refugees came to the Albany area of upstate New York in 2016, about 580 refugees came to the area altogether. More are arriving this week.
The refugee crisis is overwhelming and the way I can deal with it is to help one family at a time, one towel, plate, bowl, teapot, blanket and soccer ball at a time. I am not participating in our polarized political system, these are Americans, here legally, who need our help. It is not more complex than that.
The volunteers thank you, you cannot know, they say, what a difference you are making to these frightened and exhausted people. You are showing them the true heart and soul of America.
They are to me, my brothers and sisters. It could have been me, it could have been you. This is a simple way to do good and keep the torch that is America alive. You can help by going here.