Letter from the President: A Neighborhood’s Welcome
June 7, 2023
105 donations in 10 days bring in $100,000! The numbers are startling. A group of neighbors in Montpelier stepped forward with the dream of helping to buy a house, and its working. The neighbors want to keep a refugee family in their neighborhood, even though their lease is expiring, and they are taking action. Once purchased, the house will become available in perpetuity for asylum seekers and refugees. How has this happened? A year and a half ago the family moved to the area, speaking no English, coming from a culture halfway around the world. Now the family is so much a part of the fabric of the neighborhood in Montpelier, Vermont, that everyone nearby is pitching in to keep them here. What makes it so?
When the Central Vermont Refugee Action Network was formed 8 years ago, our organization adopted the mission statement of welcoming refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants to Central Vermont, but it seemed a distant goal. The U.S. president of that period was blocking immigration. We imagined inviting those from far away to come to our area, perhaps one or two at a time. We thought we could help most with those caught in southwest border detention facilities and established contacts there. We wanted to have each newcomer welcomed into a host family while the paperwork for work permits and asylum was obtained, and then the guest would gradually become independent. Our vision of welcome was warm, but still untested.
The reality has been much messier and much more varied than we imagined. The Central Vermont Refugee Action Network has worked hard in so many ways. Yes, we have welcomed guests from detention centers who could not begin their lives elsewhere before they obtained a sponsor and a place to live. We still believe that is important, but, at the same time we have helped some who come here on tourist visas, some who simply walked into the state, and some who have been settled in Montpelier by our government. Some newcomers are individuals, but there are also families, and sometimes whole clusters of people seeking asylum from horrific situations in their home countries. Some of these newcomers have stayed with host families. Some have lived more on their own. A few, such as the Afghan refugee families settled here, have needed whole houses for their larger families. Sometimes CVRAN is the newcomer’s main contact; but sometimes the responsibility is shared. Sadly, there are also many more people than we can help. We have had to learn to say no to people even when we want so much to help. Sometimes we can only stretch so far.
Not only have newcomers arrived in different manners than we anticipated, but we also have had to learn what a real welcome means, and again it outruns our initial vision. We are constantly learning as we listen to how newcomers define their goals, and partner along with them to achieve those goals. Volunteers, 141 of you now, have pitched in to do the many tasks needed to get a new life up and running. Local agencies and schools have picked up the welcome, providing more than generous services. And now a whole neighborhood acts together on behalf of a family in a magnificent way. It is not just CVRAN who is orchestrating this welcome to a family and to future families; it is the community itself that has picked up the baton. CVRAN is just a catalyst.
To every one of those neighbors who have contributed from your savings or your yearly budget, what a wonderful long term welcome you are creating. You started by giving bicycles, sports equipment, and rides to a practice. Your children and the family’s children became pals, and ran in and out of your houses together. They go to school together. Now you are nurturing those initial roots, and welcoming this family to make your area their home, not for a year to two, but for the foreseeable future. It is a generous thing to do, one that enriches the city and the area, and helps us all, with this family and future families.
We speak of individuals or families “graduating” when they are once working and no longer need so many services. We learn that no-one really “graduates” from our hearts and our sense of connection with them and they with us. Those connections are a true mark of success.
Rachel Walker Cogbill
P.S. Please consider
- Joining one of our teams that wraps around a family at the outset. It is a team, so the work is not overwhelming, and you get to choose where your volunteer time goes.
- Coordinating volunteers, or
- Becoming a part of the board or executive team.