Our Success Stories
Our Committee is assisting 4 Ukrainian households with housing, Case management support, ESL, transportation and job searches.
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Our Committee is working with two Ugandan Asylum-seekers providing Case management support, housing and transportation while rehabbing an apartment on the Synagogue property.
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Our Committee has supported and assisted twenty Afghan families and individuals evacuated after the Taliban takeover, providing rides to appointments, finding jobs and housing, and enrolling children in school. We fundraise to provide for other expenses that always seem to come up.
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We continued our work during the Covid-19 pandemic assisting a family of five from El Salvador. Our appointments and meetings with them were over zoom. We provided household items, warm clothing, ESL tutoring, gift cards and groceries as they got started in the US during this particularly difficult time.
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We assisted a Turkish family of 6 who are political asylees. We helped pay for Community College fees for their oldest daughter, and are providing ESL lessons. The parents have found employment and have bought a house--a real American success story!
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In December of 2020, we welcomed a family from Syria who are applying for asylum. They are doing well and studying to pass the medical boards. In February, 2023, we welcomed their extended family of 12.
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In 2020, we funded a computer course for an asylum seeker from Pakistan to help him update his skills. While he was looking for work and developing skills, he became an active member of our committee, helping volunteer with other refugees and asylum seekers.
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In January, 2020, our Committee began the resettlement process with another Afghan SIV family of six fleeing the Taliban. Princeton Theological Seminary provided a beautiful temporary home while our committee furnished their apartment, enrolled the children in school and provided ESL. During the Covid-19 pandemic, we helped them find work, moved them into affordable housing and continued tutoring. In the Winter of 2021 they moved to California to be closer to family.
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Our committee is assistng a refugee from Eritrea who arrived in 2019. She is a local hero working in a nursing home hard hit by Covid-19. We provided ESL lessons and helped her find a job she could walk to. She has dreams of studying for her nursing degree and has finished a CNA course. We funded driving lessons and a generous donor provided a car.
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In 2018 we took on another Pakistani refugee family also fleeing religious persecution. We were once again able to enlist the generous support of our local South Asian community to help us with interpretation services. In just five months, the parents and their young-adult son all had jobs and the son, who had to abandon his formal education in eighth grade, completed Mercer County Community College's High School Equivalency program! With the support of our team and scholarships, he began studying as an eager student at MCCC in the fall of 2019.
Thanks to their employment, the family has moved into affordable housing. Through our volunteers and their networks, the family has received everything they needed to set up their new apartment. They are studying English, working hard in our local community and we continue to support them as needed. Driving lessons and a car have been provided.
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Our committee has been in touch with a newly approved refugee from Burma. He still has several steps to go through in the refugee process before he gets his travel approval and tickets to come to the US, but once he does, we hope to help him resettle, as he has friends living in the area.
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The US government is currently resettling families who helped our military in Afghanistan and Iraq. They qualify for Special Immigrant Visas (SIVs) and also need help establishing new lives in the US. Our committee is assisting one such family to advance their lives. We helped them move to the Princeton area in 2018 and provided a computer and a second car. We are providing math and social studies tutoring for the mother as she studies for her High School Equivalency exam, and our jobs team is supporting the father as he looks for better employment with benefits.
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In 2019 we were asked to assist another Afghan SIV family in the Princeton area. We've provided food for their first six weeks in this country and rides to medical appointments. We've also provided winter clothing, a TV, laptop, crib, various baby items, a bike, helmet and a bike lock.
We also gathered furnishings and furniture for still another Afghan SIV family to start theire new life in this country.
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In 2018, our committee provided a gift card to a Tibetan asylum seeker to fund the purchase of gifts to send to her children.
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In 2017, our committee also worked with a climate refugee family from St. John--we furnished a townhouse for them, helped the Dad with hourly work until he was employed full-time and enrolled the teen-age daughter in a local teen program.
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At the request of Princeton Human Services, from 2016-2019, our committee supported a domestic violence survivor and her two children from Cameroon as they transitioned to living in the US. We helped them find housing and we provided rental assistance and tutoring in math and ESL. We helped the mom find work and we provided tuition for English and math classes at Mercer County Community College. Our volunteers stepped up to drive her to class and provide babysitting for the children.
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We began in 2015 by resettling a Pakistani family of three fleeing religious persecution in their country. For three months we were able to provide interpretation services thanks to members of our local Pakistani and Indian communities. We helped the family connect to their religious community in the area, and provided them all the cultural, English, medical, and job support services a refugee family needs upon arrival.
This support provided in Princeton gave them a good start in the US. They decided to move to the Midwest to be closer to Pakistani friends resettled there. They remain in contact with us, expressing their gratitude for all we provided to get them started in their new life. They have just become U.S. Citizens! Congratulations!
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