The Adirondack Welcome Circle has been overwhelmed with the generosity of this community! We have received monetary donations from so many local people. These donations are allowing us to secure an apartment for the family and cover rent and utilities, buy food for them, and cover their initial expenses. We will be helping to support them for at least the first 3 months that they are here, and a bit longer if necessary thanks to this impressive financial support. And we greatly appreciate the help of the Glens Falls Foundation, enabling donations to qualify as tax deductible.
We have also benefitted from so many people who have showed up to help rehabilitate the apartment in order to get it ready in time. People from local churches, volunteers from Rotary and Lions clubs, and most impressively Key Club and Honor Society students from Glens Falls High school have put in many hours of work. Collaborating with the landlord (who is working very hard on this as well), we feel that we can offer our refugee family a real home here.
Many of you purchased household needs from our Target wish list. We received donations of furniture and other supplies, and we are able to fully equip the home with everything the family will need. Churches and other organizations have stepped up to purchase groups of items such as everything needed for the bathroom or a kit of home tools, etc. For a family who is arriving here with nothing, this community will have given them everything they need to start a new life thanks to this outpouring of love and support.
Most importantly, we have been able to collaborate with so many of you with special skills needed to make this effort all come together. Our volunteers are offering expertise in finances, language translation, transportation, legal help, English as a new language, case management, cultural awareness, and even ethnic food.
If it “takes a village to raise a child” then it takes our community to welcome people who come to us with nothing but good will and hope for their future. This community has shown its generosity, its spirit and its heart to people we didn’t even know yet.
Our deepest gratitude to everyone who is helping to welcome these families in any way. Not only in material things like money and goods, but also in supporting these families and being the welcoming community each of us knows we are. How appropriate that these families may end up in Hometown USA!
Thank you.
The Adirondack Welcome Circle
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We would also like to thank Mannix Marketing for donating their time and expertise in helping to set up this web site.