Natalie El-Deiry, former deputy director who co-founded Spice Kitchen Incubator and strived to expand and deepen other strategic initiatives, started in her new role as executive director in April 2019.

Among the many challenges that 2020 brought to many around the world, the closing of international borders and travel restrictions as a result of the pandemic further limited the already dwindling number of refugees accepted by the Trump Administration. Prior to the pandemic, the Trump Administration had reduced the number of refugees the United States was committed to welcoming. At the onset of the pandemic, the arrivals of refugees to Tallahassee halted altogether, and it wasn’t until the end of 2020 that new families began to arrive across Big Bend communities. This time, the newly arrived families were coming from Latin America. This was a first for the IRC in Tallahassee’s short four-year history, which has historically welcomed families from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Syria.

Through the IRC in Oakland’s varied volunteer opportunities, individuals are able to share their unique experience and expertise directly with the IRC's refugee and asylee clients in the Bay Area. We currently operate several highly effective programs designed to meet a variety of refugee and asylee newcomers' needs.