Here are two items of importance:
- Bara’a has become a U.S. citizen!
- Our “adopted” Afghan family needs more assistance
Here are two items of importance:
We are happy to report that the two Afghan brothers that we “adopted” a few months ago are assimilating very well in Elizabeth. The older (23-year-old) brother has a full-time job at a local retail establishment and the younger (14-year-old) brother has made many friends, is playing every sport imaginable and is looking forward to “moving up” from his 8th grade class to high school next year. We are currently exploring summer camp opportunities for him, as well as enhanced ESL tutoring during the summer.
Since this will be the first summer in Elizabeth for the brothers, we are hoping to find a way to help them keep their apartment reasonably cool. There is currently no air conditioning in their apartment. So, if anyone has a (small) window air conditioner, or a portable, that they would like to donate, please contact Andy SIlver (email hidden; JavaScript is required). In fact, we are hoping to find two air conditioners, since one of the Syrian refugee families that we have been assisting during the past few years has also requested one.
Thank you all for your continued support.
Regards,
Judith, Mike, and Andy
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Purchases of food and household goods for Refugee Families are financed by our members’ financial contributions. You can make a contribution online at Rabbi’s Discretionary Fund, Refugee Assistance, or by a check made out to “Rabbi’s Discretionary Fund” and sent to Congregation Shomrei Emunah, 67 Park Street, Montclair, NJ 07042, designating “Refugee Assistance” in the check’s memo line.
An Update from the Shomrei Refugee Assistance Group Continue reading
An Update from the Shomrei Refugee Assistance Group
From Andy Silver:
We are organizing a Back-to-School Supplies Drive for the children in the refugee families whom we have been assisting. We need your help!
There are currently 18 school-age children, ranging in age from 4 to 16, in six of “our” families. The families have very little discretionary income to spend on school supplies; our goal is to help enable the children to have what they need to start the school year successfully.
We will be visiting the refugee families in Elizabeth on Monday and would like to bring them as many needed items as possible at that time. We’ve compiled the requested items on the following list: http://signup.com/go/PGuRfLE. If you can possibly donate any items, please sign up online and drop off the items in the box in Shomrei’s lobby by October 28 if you possibly can.
Here are the important announcements for this week:
We are excited to announce that we are now assisting a sixth family in Elizabeth! Our summer camp fundraising resulted in 8 children attending two-week sessions at the YMCAs in Wayne and Elizabeth. We are collecting school supplies for the families we are assisting. On Sept 30, we will be hosting a luncheon in the Sukkah catered by Syrian refugee families.
Three important updates since last week:
Good News #1: One of our member-families has offered to match — DOLLAR FOR DOLLAR — the first $1,500 that is donated to our campaign to help send recently resettled refugee children to summer camp! So, we now need to raise only $1,500 to meet our goal of $3,000! The funds will be used to send refugee children to summer camp at the Wayne Y and Elizabeth Y in August for one or two weeks (depending on the total funds that we raise) .
If you can, please contribute. Any amount would be appreciated. The camp sessions are just around the corner and we need to make payment to the Y by July 25, so time is of the essence.