Ali and are overjoyed to report that our intense search for a new van is over, Ali picked up the van near Albany, today.

He owns it now, and in a way, so do the refugees and immigrants of the Albany, N.Y., area.  This will greatly deepen our ability to help needy refugee and immigrant families directly and quickly, and at any time.

The van will be used exclusively to help refugees and immigrants. It will transport the soccer team, now called the Albany Warriors,  bring groceries to hungry families, shoes and other clothes to families that need them, students who need tutoring to their tutors, take people who need transportation shopping.

Many of these families do not have cars of their own.

The van’s first stop was to pick up the Albany Warriors and bring them to a soccer game, but the van marks a  kind of liberation for me and for Ali, a much wider and more focused effort to help the soccer team and their brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers and other refugees and immigrants.

Until now, we have been dependent on the use of other people’s vans.

Ali wanted to send me a photograph right away so I could put it up on the blog.

The Army of Good is the sole sponsor of the soccer team, and has been all along.

The team isn’t and hasn’t been funded by any other source. Recently, we lost the use of the vans used to transport these children.

So rather than cancel the many activities we had planned, we set out to form our own support group and work on our own. It is always better to do good rather than argue about what good is.

This week,  we went out and got our own van.

The van offers many new opportunities for us, and Ali and I both are elated at this turn. It really is what we want and need. It’s about time.

Thanks to Ali, I have met and spoken with a number of refugee families, and also gotten to know the soccer players well. we have a keen sense of who needs help, and we found many people who need help badly and are not getting any. We will continue to pursue small acts of great kindness.

Next week, we begin our tutoring programs and will resume our grocery project.

The van was purchased for $2,500 with my own money. i will pay another $1,000 to the owner over the next month.

I’m not looking for credit, I mention this only because I did not fund-raise for its purchase, and I only use donated money for the purpose it was intended for. Since I didn’t ask for money for the van, I won’t use any other money than mine for its purchase.

This van is a 2006 Odyssey, it has passed inspection, has new tires, is clean and well maintained.

Ali and I met recently at our secret office in a convenience store in  Schaghticoke, N.Y. a small town halfway between Albany and Cambridge. We call it our “office.” Until yesterday we hadn’t really grasped the symbolism of a Muslim and a Jew working together to help these kids and their families.

I think a lot of the farmers and truck drivers sitting around us did notice – we got quite a few stares – and that made us think about the beauty of it. If we can do it, anyone can do it. We like to think we are making a statement against hate without even realizing it. Ali and I are quite close, we never thought about the symbolism of that.

I’m thrilled about this van. It is central to this work the Army of Good is doing. I am asking for your support. The best is yet to come. You can donate to this program via the Gus Fund, c/o Jon Katz, P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816 or to me via Paypal, [email protected]. Please mark your contribution “refugees.” Thank  you.