Thank You to the Greensboro Community
7/19/2010

The Greensboro community has always been one of welcome, love and acceptance and it has been with great honor that Lutheran Family Services in the Carolinas has been able to call this community home for more than 30 years.

On behalf of the thousands of refugees, asylees, parolees and victims of human trafficking we have welcomed to the Triad since 1979, we would like to say THANK YOU.

We have been very blessed with wonderful community partners, loving congregations and caring employers who have all worked together for the last 30 years to ensure that the world’s most vulnerable populations, the refugees, find not only safety and security in the USA but also a home.

Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS), the national organization with which we affiliate as a resettlement program, joins us in gratitude:

Thank you to the people of Greensboro and surrounding communities who have worked with Lutheran Family Services in the Carolinas and contributed to welcoming refugee newcomers. Your legacy is powerful, and we appreciate your engagement. Communities that welcome refugees develop practical and spiritual strengths benefiting everyone -- newcomers and established residents alike.

Just since July of last year, we found 137 people jobs with an average hourly wage of $8.58 per hour. Of these employment placements, 96% included health insurance benefits. Our New Arrival School assisted 97 parents with daycare, 466 clients with English Language Training and 340 with transportation assistance. Case Managers served 219 adults for a total of 2,324 hours and assisted 375 clients with interpretation.

To reach these numbers it takes the combined efforts of dedicated staff members and the over 200 volunteers who work with us every year to not only provide basic needs, but wrap loving “community arms” around newly arrived, traumatized people.

The resettlement model Lutheran Family Services introduced 30 years ago – one of partnering with congregations and community – is a model that we not only believe in, but still depend on to provide care to other vulnerable populations (homeless families, homeless veterans and the Katrina evacuees, for example). This model has been stressed for several reasons: changes in the US resettlement regulations reduced the role volunteers can play in the lives of refugees; the economic crisis forced many people to re-evaluate the outside volunteer work they can afford to do; and the financial situation in many congregations requires them to limit long term volunteer and financial commitments.

So our years in refugee resettlement in Greensboro have not been without struggle, but this community has shown its resilience even in the hardest times. We have seen people give, even when they were in need themselves, and we have seen them go out of their way to ensure our new neighbors truly feel at home.

We are deeply saddened to make the difficult decision to end reception and placement services in the Triad as well as end immigration legal services in October. We will continue to provide these services from our Raleigh, NC and Columbia, SC offices.

We do know, however, that this vulnerable group is in good hands. We are working closely with Church World Service, World Relief and African Services Coalition to transition refugees already in our community and to support these fine providers as they continue to provide reception services in Greensboro. We will continue to provide services at our New Arrival School through the end of the year.

We also hope that, together, we can continue to look at ways to strengthen the U.S. Refugee Resettlement program. In the heated debate around Immigration Reform, the plight of refugees and the current resettlement policies of the U.S. can be lost or misunderstood. As advocates of these displaced people, we need our voices to be heard to ensure continued improvement of this country’s resettlement program.

Though our distinction in the Triad has been refugee services, LFS Carolinas has not “collapsed” – we still reach out to vulnerable people in this community through our home for adults suffering with traumatic brain injury (TBI), apartments for adults with TBI and Severe and Persistent Mental Illnesses, our home for people with mental retardation and our special needs adoption program.

We hope you will continue to support us in our effort to help those in need.

Again we say thank you, and know your commitment is recognized at all levels.

Lutheran Family Services in the Carolinas
Suzanne Gibson Wise, President and CEO
Robert O. Klepfer, Jr. Chairman, Board of Directors