Today the final steps of our applications to mentor refugees was turned into Catholic Community Services (CCS). Fingerprints and copies of driver’s licenses to help facilitate the background check process. It’s been a bit of a process to get signed up and ready to help.
We have a friend, Lynn, that organizes a lot of help for some of the refugee community in Salt Lake City. He does much good and has helped many. However, his approach is more just as an individual providing assistance. As an older gentleman, Lynn reaches out to many through social media, often to solicit support through donations of goods – coats and boots in the winter, fans to help cool apartments in the summer, school supplies in the fall, food at Thanksgiving, gifts at Christmas. Much good is done and support given. His attitude is that the NGOs (non-governmental organizations) require too much paperwork and have too many regulations that are restrictive. I can appreciate his point. And he’s great at mobilizing many people, often at short notice. Sometimes he may ask for dozens to over a hundred of a single item. And, within a week they’ve all been donated and delivered. Very impressive. We helped with providing gifts at Christmas time last year and having a “coat drive” to collect and deliver coats. When we came to deliver coats, we found that the family we provided Christmas gifts for had received an entire 2nd round of gifts from another person or group. Now don’t get me wrong – there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s just an example where efforts as an independent person were duplicated, probably by an NGO also organizing Christmas gifts. And, there’s a good chance that was duplicated throughout the entire housing complex were 100+ refugee families live. Perhaps with a bit of coordination, efforts could spread the good a bit wider.
Another thing we found after making donations last year was that it seemed a bit hollow – kind of the one time event. Certainly the bed we provided and the laptop computer we donated were needed and of benefit, along with the other food, supplies, furniture, etc. that could be helpful. But, it was a bit sad to not get to know the family (from Nepal) in any meaningful depth. To not know how their lives were changing, to not be able to help with things like keeping tabs on the teenager learning how to use the computer. There was certainly nothing preventing us from returning, from trying to build a friendship with them. Certainly that’s what Lynn has done – you can see it as he walks through the apartment complex. People say hello. He knocks on any door and he’s invited in with a smile, etc. For us, having something a bit more organized and coordinated will be helpful. Getting involved with CCS and assigned to help focus on a specific family is a good step for us.