Announcement
Co-authored by: Cory Johnson and Corey Rheingrover
Nearly a decade ago, KindWorks formed with the mission of organizing volunteer opportunities to support vulnerable members of the Washington, D.C. area community. Through its volunteer initiatives, KindWorks has served local community members who are hospitalized, homeless, and incarcerated. The organization now takes on upwards of 20 different projects each month, and has partnered with the International Rescue Committee in Silver Spring on several projects in 2017.
KindWorks and the IRC uphold community engagement as a fundamental tenet to their missions. Both believe that everyone benefits from frequent and accessible community involvement, with the aim to utilize community strengths to address community needs. The IRC’s efforts to provide essential aid to people left vulnerable by conflict and crisis made for a natural partnership with KindWorks. This partnership came to fruition in early 2017 when KindWorks chose to incorporate US refugee resettlement into their projects.
The living room of an apartment furnished by KindWorks, set-up for a refugee family of three arriving the following afternoon.
Photo: Alexa Abdelatey, KindWorks
An initial KindWorks project to provide dinner to refugees in February blossomed into a larger initiative to collect donations and furnish apartments for newly-arriving refugee families. Since late May, the IRC has coordinated with KindWorks to furnish homes for three refugee families. Many refugees who resettle in the D.C. area fly to the U.S. directly from refugees camps overseas and arrive with few, if any, material possessions. To help these families start new lives in the U.S., KindWorks has provided everything from dining room sets and sofas, to essential kitchen and bathroom items.
Alexa Abdelatey, Refugee Apartment Coordinator for KindWorks, reflected on this initiative:
“It’s very important to us at KindWorks that when [a] new refugee family arrives from the airport, they enter a comfortable, beautiful home that has been thoughtfully and lovingly set-up especially for them. We want them to have everything they might need to feel at ease in their new home and to help them get happily planted in their new community.”
KindWorks’ initiative to create welcoming, comfortable homes for new families in the U.S. goes beyond providing essential household items and goes a long way to make refugees feel welcomed in our community. There is also an unseen benefit for clients when essential items, such as furniture and kitchen items, are donated. These kinds of donations allow the IRC to directly reallocate the funds that are saved to pay for other essentials for the incoming families, such as additional rental assistance.
To support newly arriving refugees in our area, individuals can volunteer with KindWorks or directly with the IRC, or support refugee resettlement efforts through material or financial donations to the IRC in Silver Spring. An updated list of in-kind donations needed by the IRC in Silver Spring can be found here.
In the future, KindWorks intends to remain a force promoting community engagement and assistance across the D.C. area. A look at their past and future projects can be found here.