Could you make the difference in whether a newly arrived refugee can find their way to an independent, 'successful' life in America? World Relief needs 12 more teams of volunteers to pledge their help in 2006, or a great opportunity to participate in a matching grant program will be lost, and refugees will not be sent to the Quad Cities. The Quad Cities is a good starting point for people, and refugees are survivors who bring those qualities of determination and perseverance to the Quad Cities.
Here's how you can help: Find 4 friends and create your own team. Agree for the group to help one refugee household (single or family) for just 3 hours per week for six months. Sometime in the first month after arrival, we'd like the refugee to meet your whole team. Then, when individual members come to help them with sorting mail, checking children's backpacks for school notes and reports, practicing English or helping them fill out job applications, they will know you all. So each team member commits to as little as 3 hours per month.
Of course, developing a friendly relationship with the refugee family may convince you to see them more often. And that's great. Families and singles will arrive beginning in January, so teams will be needed starting throughout the year. If World Relief can't track $800 worth of in-kind donations per refugee (and EACH HOUR is valued at $17.19, and we can count your mileage as well), the program can't exist. We have several women awaiting a reunion with their husbands, and several awaiting reunions with children who were left overseas because the family was split during the war. If the World Relief office closes, there will be no government-approved agency present to allow those families to be reunited. And that's a heartbreak. Please help if you can.
Call World Relief at 309-764-2279 or fax us at 309-764-2399 with your name and any names of teammates you have, and a way to contact you. We'll be out of the office Thursday through Sunday of Thanksgiving week, but will receive everything on Monday. You can also email to rbationo@wr.org or to agrove@wr.org and we'll put you down. We don't have exact start dates for teams until we get the fax saying a family is coming, so your team might be invited to help starting in February 2006 or August 2006. We know circumstances can change, but without a commitment to try, the government assumes the community isn't interested enough to support the program.
Thanks for all you do - Ann Grove