Thank you from the deepest part of my heart for supporting the refugee students at Bishop Maginn High School and their families in this awful time for them, for us. And thanks also for selling out the latest Mansion Amazon Wish List  – are supplies for the residents on lockdown. They appreciate it very much.

Sue Silverstein wants me to tell you that because of you, every student and family in the Bishop Maginn Community has had enough food to eat. The need continues, some families are sick, some are out of work, most are running out of money.

All these families want – they have all lost everything – is to find work, care for their families and rebuild their lives. Our government has chosen this time to abandon them, their support stipends have been cut or canceled, they are not getting any stimulus checks from the government.

They were marginal before the virus, now they are getting hungry as well.

Thanks to you and our Price Chopper Gift Card program, they are eating warm and nutritious meals. We are feeding between 30 -40 families whose needs are critical.

It breaks my heart to hear the stories of these children, many of whom spent years in refugee camps, where they lived in crowded, dangerous camps with little food for years.

“The story of our struggle has finally become known,” wrote Hannah Arendt in her classic essay, We Refugees:

“We lost our home, which means the familiarity of daily life. We lost our occupation, which means the confidence that we are of some use in this world. We lost our language, which means the naturalness of reactions, the simplicity of gestures, the unaffected expression of feelings.”

In addition, these families and their children have been forced now to leave their families and best friends behind, many killed by war, genocide, refugee and concentration camps, and that means the rupture of their private lives as well.

That have arrived in the Promised Land only to discover many no longer welcome them here. The government has made it clear they don’t want them., their children are taunted and beaten in the public schools – that’s how so many have ended up at Bishop Maginn, which has taken them in, often without tuition.

You have been helping them through this awful time, and I hope we can continue to help them. We are limited in what we can do, but I believe we can keep them in food until our cities open up and they can return to their jobs or find work. None of them want charity, they all want to work.

The gift card program works this way. You go the Price Chopper Gift Card sit and you can purchase gift cards in any amount, from $25 up…If you spent more than $300,  you may be asked to activate the card in an e-mail sent shortly after purchase.

The cards need to be sent to me at my farm because Bishop Maginn is closed and gift cards can’t be delivered to post office boxes. So if you choose to help, please send the cards to Jon Katz, 2502 State Route 22, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816. I will get them promptly to Sue Silverstein, the school’s theology and art teacher and the person dispensing the cards to the people and families that need them.

She says she has never seen so many people ask for help or need so much.

I thank you very much. If you are uncomfortable buying things online, you can send a contribution to me via Paypal, [email protected]. Or by check, Jon Katz, Mansion/Refugee Fund, P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816.

You can see the cards and purchase them here. Please be sure to fill out all the fields. Thank you.