SCM Update for May 2020

SCM is committed to serving communities of color around the US. Be they Syrian, Iraqi, Afghani, or black, we believe that all people have the right to freedom and dignity, and we are doing our part to drive this change. With your help we have been doing pretty well as we work with Syrian refugees with tools and opportunities to build brighter futures, we seek the same for other marginalized communities. Thank you for all your help in getting this done, without you we would not be able to do anything.

Here is what we did in May with your help:

• Provide $20,450 in rent assistance for resettled refugees in Washington state
• Provide $3200 in utility bill assistance for resettled refugees in Washington state
• Paid $1200 in air ticket loans for some of the refugee families (they must sign a promissory note for the airline tickets in order to travel to the US from wherever they were awaiting their asylum approval)
• Sent $4000 to LGBTQ refugees in Serbia to help cover shelter, food, asylum application expenses
• $3000 has been sent to Samos in Greece to help the refugees there with food, hygiene supplies and pest control
• $2500 was sent Turkey for LGBTQ refugees living expenses
• $20,000 in food aid during the month of Ramadan to refugees in Jordan
• $10,000 to help with medicine and food inside Syria
• We also did a clothing drive and collected 10,000 pounds of clothing that Goodwill pays us $.20 per pound. This money was turned into rental assistance.
• We contacted farmers in eastern Washington, and they donated potatoes, onions, and apples to SCM. Over a two-day period, we were able to collect 1500 pounds for the Iraqi, Syrian, and Afghani refugees.

We want to thank you all for your generosity and assistance in May to help the refugees get by. This financial crisis for the refugees is not something that will be ending soon so we need to keep up our pace to continue helping them. With your assistance we will be able to do that.

We are getting more and more calls for help – one person gives our name to another person and that person passes it on to another person. We do check the validity of the requests, and the money is never given directly to the refugees but it is paid directly to the utility companies or to the landlords. We are also in contact with other organizations to make sure we are not double paying for anyone who might be getting some other kind of assistance that they also requested from us.

Looking forward, we are planning to send a container by the end of this month to Jordan. It will be filled with humanitarian goods and clothing we have been collecting since the beginning of this year. We have not been able to send it sooner because of the virus, so we will let everyone know when the container will be loaded and then we hope everyone will be able to come and help us load – wearing their mask and gloves and do the social distancing, of course!

So, thank you again everyone! We appreciate all your help and generosity. Stay healthy, wash your hands, wear a mask, and let’s keep on going and let’s make this a better world!

Thank you!

~Rita