The RISSE refugee children have asked me to thank you for your gifts sent them via the RISSE Amazon Wish List, which the staff is scrambling to fill every as the Army Of Good eats through the list, now for the sixth time.

They are playing with their new games and puzzles, sitting in bright, soft bean bag chairs, reading under the light of new ramps, learning with new software programs, drawing with new pens and brushes, storing their pens and pencils in bins,  writing on new whiteboard.

RISSE is the refugee and immigrant support center of the Emmaus Methodist Church in Albany. They have approximately 200 young students and teach 1,000 adults. They are essential to the lives and hopes of these new citizens, our brothers and sisters.

I’m going to RISSE on Thursday to take some more photos. Today, some inexpensive but utilitarian items from the new, new, new, new, new, new list. I bought some hand sanitizer pump bottles for $15.96, block erasers for the new whiteboard for $6 (they need two more) and some wet wipes erasers for board cleaning.

The $552 outdoor trash can is being purchased by a reader of the blog, I’ll be buying that when the check comes.

The kids, most from the Middle East, Africa and Asia, have not had these things before, and life in the school is being transformed, we have sent more than $5,000 in gifts from the wish list. These children are quite wonderful and courteous and appreciative.

They are no threat to us here in America, their families are struggling.

Mostly, their fathers have either been killed or stranded in refugee camps as our government slams the doors that were once open to them. Their single mothers work in two or three jobs, mostly cleaning hotel rooms, they take classes and courses to improve themselves and the lives of their children.

You are teaching these children, showing them the true heart and soul of America. Thank you. I’m eager to see them on Thursday, and look at the piles of boxes coming in every day from Amazon. You can look at the list here.