Today, six Pricer Chopper gift cards waiting for me at the post office, more coming in the mail. About 50 families are eating well because of you.
Tran is the father of a refugee family at Bishop Maginn. In Myanmar, he was a doctor. Here, he vacuums hotel carpets at night. He was making $10 an hour working for a company that arranges cleaning work.
He was laid off two weeks ago. “I want to thank you,” he said in an e-mail message, written by his daughter. “You and the people in your group have saved us, fed us, and let us keep our dignity. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts.
He has never in his life worried about feeding his family – not even in the refugee camps – or asked for financial aid. But when his rent was overdue and he had no money to give his wife for groceries, he contacted Sue Silverstein, the teacher of his two children at Bishop Maginn High School.
He was mortified and apologetic.
He said his family was eating rice at every meal, even that was running out. Sue said the family had never once asked for help.
She sent him $200 in Price Chopper Gift Cards, and they have enough healthy food for the next month or so. Right now, we are helping to feed between 40 and 50 Bishop Maginn families.
“I’ve been teaching for a long time,” Sue told me, “I’ve never seen anything like this.”
Tran hopes to get a part-time cleaning in a couple of weeks when some businesses are allowed to open. Two of Tran’s three children have gotten jobs helping elderly couples shop and mow their lawns, they are paid very little money.
But they want to help out.
None of the refugee families are eligible for the government’s stimulus checks. Some are applying for unemployment, but most are not eligible for various reasons, and the system is chaotic and overwhelmed now.
They are independent and self-sufficient, they won’t accept help a day longer than they need it. But there are some dark and hard days ahead for them.
I am as proud of the Gift Card program as anything we have done. Sue says she has never seen such need and fear, and she has been teaching for a long time.
I would like to keep this program going, economists say things will get worse before they get better. You can purchase gift cards in any amount. If you purchase any, please send them to my home address, Jon Katz, 2502 State Route 22, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816.
I overnight them to Sue Silverstein, who distributes them. About 20 of these families are in dire distress, the rest on the edge. but with few or no resources.
If you buy more than $300 worth at one time, you will be sent an e-mail activation message in a day or, you just have to affirm that you are the buyer of the cards. Otherwise, they are all instantly usable.
Every day, I go to the mailbox or the UPS driver comes by, there are gift cards every day. I’m so glad we aren’t quitting on these deserving people, here in search of a dream that is more complex than they imagined.
You can see the cards or buy them here. Thank you. I do believe we will look back on this program with pride, it is perhaps our finest hour.