Catholic Courier features Saint's Place

Looking ahead to 2023, our 25th Anniversary, we ponder how did we get here? How did we meet all those challenges? Where did the years go? The one thing we are certain of is that your years of support and advocacy have been the strongest reasons for our ongoing success. Your generosity has given refugees a warm welcome, a second chance to live in peace, shown they are important, restored their dignity and demonstrated that we care. 

In the last two years, Saint’s Place has faced many new challenges with people caught in wars and humanitarian crises. Afghan and Ukrainian refugees are being forced to flee their homeland with just a few personal possessions. They arrive in Rochester speaking little or no English, with a bag that holds their past and future. Because of your assistance and compassion, Saint’s Place has been able to make them feel safe and welcomed. By setting up their homes with new beds, bedding, household items and furniture, giving them suitable clothing for our everchanging weather and helping them with educational needs, Saint’s Place makes every effort to ease their transition to a new culture.

Currently, we are helping the over 350 Ukrainian refugees here in Rochester under the Uniting for Ukraine program started by the Biden administration. This program allows Ukrainians to be admitted to the U.S. through individual sponsorship. The sponsor is responsible for their financial and administrative burdens of resettlement. We have talked with these Ukrainian refugees and heard their brave stories of getting to the U.S., leaving their loved ones behind, and how family members died. They left the country they loved while their fathers and sons may still be in Ukraine fighting for their homeland. The refugees were forced to flee and are very grateful and humbled by the generosity of this community. You have been there for them.

Saint’s Place is inspired by their courage and motivated to meet the ever-growing challenge of supplying the necessities needed to begin a new chapter of their lives in Rochester. Primary needs include new beds, bedding, and warm winter clothing. Cost for these items has increased considerably over the past two years. As always, your participation in our Patron Saint’s Campaign is an important part of helping these deserving people restore their self-esteem. 

We also ask for your prayers for the country of Ukraine and for all refugees whether they be from Ukraine, Afghanistan, Congo, Somalia, Sudan, Burma, Syria, and the list goes on. Saint’s Place offers support to all refugees.  

Although Saint's Place primary mission is to assist refugees, we help other non-profits too as much as we can, thanks to the abundance of donations we receive. Recently, we assisted families displaced by two horrendous fires, one at the Pines of Perinton and another at an apartment building in Rochester. Saint's Place took a huge van of items to the Perinton Recreation Center, where the victims of the Perinton fire were evacuated. We also assisted in setting up apartments with necessary household goods and furniture for some of the residents displaced by the fires, while continuing to set up new homes for refugees. 

Saint’s Place staff and volunteers don’t usually get to see homes once they are ready for a refugee family to arrive. We acquire and deliver all the beds, linens, household goods, cleaning supplies, toiletries, art etc. and deliver it to the homes. We put the cribs and beds together and put the furniture in the rooms. At that point the case workers and caring circles step in and make the beds and set up the kitchen and bathrooms. However, one recent morning in January, Saint’s Place received an urgent request to help get a home put together for a large family arriving that evening. 

The Saint’s Place truck was already out delivering beds and furniture for a new family of five, so Michele, Stacey and Andrea from Saint’s Place, along with ladies and missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (thank you, Lisa, Stacey B. and Meredith) spent the morning making beds, hanging curtains, dusting, vacuuming and mopping alongside members of First Presbyterian Church of Pittsford. By the time they were finished, the house looked beautiful and was ready for the family of nine who arrived that night. No doubt the family was happy to have such a lovely and warm home awaiting them. 

 This is our long time volunteer Joanne putting together babydoll kits for children.  We take donated baby clothes and dolls, wash them, and then create a kit that includes a doll, clothes and a blanket and give them to children through our clothing closet.  

We love donations of dolls and clothes and doll furniture that your children have outgrown.

Meet Saint’s Place Volunteer Carol Lawrence!

Reading and watching news reports about tragedies and challenges around the world led Carol Lawrence to Saint’s Place. 

“I was increasingly disturbed by what I was seeing happen in the world, and frustrated like so many people are that you don’t know what to do about it, you feel helpless, you realize that you can’t save large groups of people from starvation,” Carol said. “And then I read a newspaper article about the Clothing Closet, and I thought, ‘That sounds really neat. It’s actually very close to me; there’s almost no reason that I shouldn’t be over there.’ And so I reached a point where I thought if I couldn’t do something big, I could do something small.”

That was three years ago, and since then Carol has been volunteering on Thursday mornings, and often on other days, too. Carol works in the room that features children’s clothing and men’s clothing. 

At first, she felt timid about working with the refugees who didn’t speak much or any English, and she didn’t speak their language. “But then I very quickly learned that it’s pretty easy to communicate with people. The volunteers who have been here a long time taught me how you can use lots of hand action and mimicry, and it became great fun.”

Carol says one thing that has really struck her about the refugees is their optimism, especially when refugees have been waiting years to be allowed to enter the United States. “The people we see in here have been so strong and so resourceful just to get here. They have a huge amount of optimism so it’s really fun to meet them and to find ways to communicate.”

The volunteers sometimes learn the aspirations of the refugees. Carol recalls specifically an Afghanistan man who came with his wife and children to get clothing. He had worked as an interpreter with U.S. troops and he had come to Rochester through a program to help interpreters who find their lives in danger in their homeland.

This man spoke excellent English, and he planned to attend Monroe Community College and get licensed as an electrician, as he had done that work in Afghanistan. “That man came here with a plan, and he was accomplishing it.”

Carol sees him as just one example of the refugees who visit the Clothing Closet, often within days of their arrival in Rochester. “The whole cycle is very clear; there are people who are coming here, they have a plan, there’s a way for them to work through that plan and be very successful. And there are a lot of people like that.” 

Although she may not meet a refugee more than once, Carol doesn’t forget any of them. “I meet a person, I meet a family, you go home and they’re with you, you think about them. Over and over and over again, you meet impressive people who are strong and have been through so much.”

Meet Saint’s Place Volunteer Mary Galbraith

When refugees arrive in Rochester, Saint’s Place provides everything they need to make their apartments into warm and cheery homes.

Mary Galbraith often assists in that endeavor. Mary is a volunteer at the Saint’s Place Clothing Closet, which includes a large room of household items, either gently used or brand new.

“Think of anything that you use in your own house, that’s what we try to give them—dishes, glasses, pots and pans, utensils,” Mary says. 

This also includes small kitchen appliances, such as rice cookers, along with table lamps, bedding and towels, even toys for the children. (Furniture, such as beds and kitchen tables, are stored at the Saint’s Place warehouse.)

Mary and the other volunteers receive information on each arriving family, so they know the number of people and their ages. “Sometimes they have specific needs and other times they just need a full household setup,” Mary notes. 

Mary became interested in volunteering after hearing about Saint’s Place at her parish, St. Louis Church in Pittsford. “I wanted to see what it was all about. I called the Saint’s Place office, and had my interview and here I am.”

She started out volunteering one day a week, and she liked it so much that she gradually increased her commitment. She now comes every day that the Clothing Closet is open, Monday through Thursday mornings. 

Mary gets a lot of satisfaction out of volunteering. 

“The refugees are just wonderful people, the smiles, the hugs, I just love helping them,” Mary says. “I love seeing their faces when they get something new. It’s just unbelievable that things we take for granted are just so special to them. When you give the kids toys, it’s like you’re giving them a million dollars. The one thing I’ve learned is it doesn’t matter where people are from. People are people, and they have the same needs.”

An added bonus for Mary is the friendships she’s made with other volunteers. Volunteering at the Clothing Closet “is work, but it’s fun, too.” 

Saint's Place has been working closely with Rochester International Academy for many years.  Located on Edgerton Park in the city of Rochester, RIA is designed to facilitate the cultural and academic transition of newly arrived English Language Learners through rigorous language instruction and interdisciplinary learning in collaboration with families and community.  Their current enrollment includes 318 refugee students.

Saint's Place has two volunteers who work with the RIA families and their social workers to identify ways we can help these families.   Families from RIA frequently visit our Clothing Closet for winter clothing and school supplies and for several years, Saint's Place has provided school uniforms for the students.

This year, we donated khaki pants and the shirts you see in the photo above.  In December of 2019, we are giving another 100 RIA hoodies for the older students.

Rochester International Academy is a wonderful, welcoming place for students who are learning a new language and adapting to a new culture and environment.  We are privileged to work with them.