What happens in the first 72 hours decides everything.
A family lands at the airport. They have a case number, a phone they can't charge, and a 90-day federal clock already ticking. The intake office is fluorescent-lit and loud. The forms are in English. The caseworker has 47 other families on her list.
This is where Refuge begins. Not with a welcome speech — with a chair pulled up to the table, a form walked through line by line, a bus route mapped on a phone screen. The ordinary work that makes the impossible clock survivable.
Families arrived this fiscal year
Afghan and Congolese families resettled in our metro area since October 2025
Languages at our front desk
Dari, Pashto, French, Lingala, Swahili, Arabic, and eight more answered daily
Self-sufficiency clock
Federal mandate: families must reach financial independence within 90 days of arrival
First response window
Our caseworkers meet every arriving family within 72 hours — before the disorientation sets in
Not abstract values. Photographed moments.
Every story below happened in our city, in the last twelve months. The names are real. The parking lots are real. The phone held between a mother and a teacher — real.
The paperwork that opens doors.
Asylum applications. School enrollment forms. Benefits paperwork. Our caseworkers sit beside families — not across from them — and walk every line until it makes sense. This year: 847 documents filed, zero families left to navigate alone.
First parent-teacher conference. Through an interpreter's phone.
When Amira Hassan attended her daughter's first conference at Riverside Elementary, our interpreter joined by phone. The teacher learned that Fatima loves math but needs graph paper, not lined. Small detail. Everything.
Driver's ed in a church parking lot, 7am on a Saturday.
A license is a bus route you don't have to take. Volunteer instructor Marcus Webb has taught 34 new Americans to drive in the past two years — every lesson in the parking lot of Covenant Fellowship Church before Sunday services.
We showed up with a couch and two lamps. We stayed because they became family.
David Okafor
Community Sponsor · Westside Community Church
From crisis response to lasting infrastructure.
The 90-day clock doesn't stop. But a family with a mentor, a resource center two blocks away, and a welcome kit chosen by someone who knows what it's like — that family has a real chance. This is what your seat at the table funds.
Multilingual Family Resource Center
Building nowA permanent, staffed space where families can access legal aid, job training, and language classes under one roof — in their language. Opening spring 2027. We need 200 founding supporters.
Matched Mentor Program
Launching 2026Pairing each newly arrived family with a local family who has been here 3+ years. Not service. Accompaniment. 40 matches in the pilot; scaling to 200 this year.
Welcome Kit Distribution Network
ActiveRice cookers, prayer rugs sized for small hands, school supplies labeled in Dari and French. 312 kits delivered this year. Every item chosen by families who arrived two years before.
The Next Concrete Thing
After everything you just read, standing still feels impossible.
Reserve Your SeatA Seat at the Table. Literally.
On April 12th, Refuge hosts its annual gathering at Covenant Fellowship Church. A shared meal, a caseworker's honest account of the week's hardest moment, and the concrete invitation to fund what comes next. No speeches. No slideshows. Just the work, and the people doing it.
"Last year I went not knowing what to expect. I left having sponsored a family. It wasn't a pitch — it was just the truth, told plainly."
Nadia Petrov · Attendee 2025, Now a Community Sponsor
Reserve Your Seat
April 12 · Covenant Fellowship Church · Dinner included
Can't attend? Send me updates on Refuge's work and future events.
April 12 · Covenant Fellowship Church — 80 seats. Dinner included.
Annual Gathering · April 12
Reserve Your Seat