Assisting Afghan Refugees

The past 3 months have been quite busy mentoring and supporting our newest Afghan neighbors.  Since November, we have assisted 5 additional families, 3 of which contacted us when they found our Afghan Refugee information on the website.  We were the only ones who responded to their request for help.   Our priorities are to enable refugees to be self-supporting, but the current climate has been difficult for them to find employment or enough to pay rent.  Our church and others have responded by providing rental assistance for a few of these families.  We continue to need funds and case management support for a few families.  We are also able to connect new families to families that have been here for several months or years so that they can share important resources. In addition, we were able to provide furniture from Charlene Krohn’s estate to other refugee families through support from NoVA RAFT.

NEEDS:

•  One family of 5  (3 children )is in an apartment that they can’t afford because they accepted a lease with no knowledge of American Culture, standard of living, or understanding of the employment issues in Alexandria.  Their resettlement organization did not support them after they arrived.  While Fairfax Circle has assisted them with finding jobs and resources, they are not getting enough work hours to pay the rent.  They are the nicest people and so happy to be here, even though they continue to struggle to pay bills everyday.  NEEDS: Case Management-  If you would like to assist them in job searches or finding ways to help them with the apartment search, please contact marsha@fairfaxcirclechurch.org
• A new family arrived in November through the Humanitarian Parole process.  They are a family of adults who have a relative here who has been supporting them, but is struggling to pay rent for all..  We have helped them connect to resources such as NoVARAFT and Homes Not Borders, which provided some much needed furniture for their apartment. They are now struggling to find jobs, and our Refugee Fund provided groceries, essential housewares, bedding, and driving Lessons for one family member.  We also had generous donors who provided other items through an Amazon wish List.  We may need to support them with some rental assistance as well. They are also in need of a car and used phones.
• SEWING MACHINES! Some women who cannot work out of the home are looking to do some tailoring at home to earn money.  They need sewing machines and/or sergers to do this. If you have knowledge of sewing and are willing to work on finding some gently used machines, please contact Marsha.
• Used iPhones or iPads/tablets- We have several families who only have 1 working phone to share and they need individual phones to get around public transportation and find work.
• CARS- We have successfully paired 2 used cars with 2 different families in the past (thanks for generous donations).  We are in need of at least 2 more cars for the newest families which would give them more flexibility with work.  Again, contact Marsha marsha@fairfaxcirclechurch.org or David David@fairfaxcirclechurch.org if you have any access to reliable, affordable, used cars.

The website to donate to our Refugee Assistance Fund ishttps://pushpay.com/g/fairfaxcirclechurch?src=hpp.  Please share with your friends and neighbors who may be looking for ways to give back right now. Here are some photos from the past couple of months.