11 February

Helping Refugee Families: See The Miracle Kitchen Counter You Created

by Jon Katz
Helping Refugees

My donation today on the Amazon Refugee Gift Page: English Study Guide, $4.95.

Every morning, me and many others purchase a simple and inexpensive item that will transform the life of a refugee family, help them live in their new home, and remind them how open and generous  country America is. The donations are making an enormous difference.

One of the refugee families wanted you to see the miracle you wrought with your donations, they arrived recently from the Middle East and the kitchen counter was bare. They come with little or no money, and a small stipend that is usually gone by the time they arrive.

The donations from the Army Of Good included a rice cooker knives/scissors set, a tea kettle, a blender and mortar pestle, pots, pans, dishes silverware and some other gifts already ready stored. The family that received them wanted to say thank you and also wished for you to see what you have done for them.

They did not have the money yet to buy these things for themselves. They lost everything and had languished in refugee camps for years, being investigated multiple times while being stranded in vast, overcrowded and underfunded  refugee camps.

In sending these inexpensive and simple things, you have transformed the lives of people in great need, ended a cycle of fear and loss that has devastated them and their families. Your donations have been so generous and helpful that this model is being studied all over the country. Thank, you, thank you.

You have kept the torch lit.

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
I’ve heard those lines from Emma Lazarus a thousand times, they are beautiful and fresh to me every time.
And we are living those values, here on the gift page. Your gifts are going to the huddled messages, yearning to be free, the homeless and the tempest-tost. That’s precisely who these people are. Now, We are the lamp.
You are lighting the lamp for them, these are the very people who statue was built to greet. We are free to greet them in our own way.
There is great need now, more refugees are arriving every day for as long as they can, and your donations have already been sent out to families who came before them. Families are arriving even as this written. There is room in the warehouse again.

The Amazon gift page was set up by the United States Committee on Refugees and Immigration, you can browse the page and choose the item you want to donate, the items range in price from $4.95 to $60.00. The site is easy to use, you simply click on the USCRI address line on the way to checkout and the gifts wlll be sent there.

I do not believe my values and beliefs are things for others to argue about, so I don’t do that, especially online.

Helping these children is not a controversial thing  for me, they are here legally and have been exhaustively vetted. We have lost our way if we can’t help them.

I begin every day with a donation to the gift page. It feels wonderful, it lifts me up out of the cloud of anger and cruelty that seems to hover like a black cloud over our country. If you can see your way to helping this people, know that it truly matters, and every penny goes right to the refugees, nowhere else.

My donation today to the Amazon Refugee Gift Page: English Study Guide, $4.95.

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