This weekend, we raised enough money to guarantee Malek a secure position at Bishop Maginn until she graduates. She is safe at last. Thank you.

Principal Mike Tolan wrote a personal note to one of the more than dozen donors (this one that he wrote to wishes to remain anonymous) to say “your generosity will assure that Malek will graduate in two years not worrying any longer about tuition and will focus totally on her grades and her future. Bless you!”

Good news for her, good news for her family, good news for our country. She will make all of us proud of her, she is already planning on how to give back to the country that gave her shelter.

I admit to having been rattled, I’d asked for help twice getting Malek some help with her Bishop Maginn High School Tuition – she only needed $4,000, another student going to the Albany Academy drew more than $30,000.

There was almost no response. Then, last week, a very generous $500 check came to the school for Melak, and that was pretty much the end. Malek was not yet safe.

I wasn’t sure what was happening. Perhaps people were getting tired of me, perhaps some of the poison about refugees were seeping into our subconscious, perhaps people were out of money, perhaps it was just one of those social media glitches where messages get lost or vanish.

So last night, I realized I had to be more open about money – I truly hate to ask for it or talk about it but I need to ask for money all the time – and wrote to explain that we weren’t getting much money for Melak and asked for help again.

I got it.

The Army Of Good has been a miracle for many people, we each act on our own instincts and values, we can never all speak to one another. “I just assumed somebody else had contributed,” she said, “that always seems to happen.”

So this is my fault, I see, I have to be clearer and what is happening. I haven’t had this issue before, so I never needed to do that except once or twice. We work on trust and shared values.

Once I explained what had happened, the tuition money came within less than a day.

I was determined not to quit on this wonderful young woman,  soon to be a student in my writing class.

Malek has spent her whole life in the most dangerous real estate on the earth, surviving war, civil war, bombings, and assassinations, and got to America only be ridiculed and harassed for not speaking English and being a refugee from Iraq and Syria.

The one country in the world here family thought was the safest turned out not to be that safe.

This Fall, Malek found her safe place- Bishop Maginn High School. She is very happy there, she feels safe there for the first time in her life, loved and surrounded by friends and compassionate teachers who have the time and the will to help her fulfill her dream of becoming a lawyer.

She will pay all of us back a thousand times, she wants to be a government lawyer so she can help people just like her. I can’t wait to be at her graduation ceremony and shake her hand when she graduates from law school. You all made it possible.