The UCE Afghani family: Please support them! 

We wanted to give you a quick update about the Afghan family that the Refugee Family volunteers have been helping. We are proud to tell you that we have raised $6000 with another $2000 to go to reach our $8000 fundraising goal. 

The baby of the family just turned one and there is much to celebrate as she is a joy, toddling around and babbling away. The young man in the family (nephew of the mother) loves to practice soccer at the Weber Center in Skokie and is also in chess club at his school. 

Note: If you have a child who is around 10 years old and they’d be willing to practice soccer or do another fun activity with the boy—please reach out Jeanne Kerl (her email address is in Realm or use admin@ucevanston.org) and we can arrange an outing. 

The mother is working hard on learning English, and she often has two lessons a day online. We would love to see her taking classes at Oakton, but with a baby, childcare is an issue. We will be working with World Relief to try to get her a job and she will need childcare for that. It is a challenge. 

The family’s immigration issues are significant. The father is still in Afghanistan and Andy Schlickman and Marilyn Wroblewski have spent many, many hours pulling together information for his humanitarian parole case, which is now complete. Now they are working on the mother’s case with help from the Muslim Women’s Center. Because Afghanistan imploded so quickly, these families are not traditional refugees with a long vetting period, so they need to apply to stay in the U.S.  

NOTE: If you know of anyone with legal skills that might be able to help our team, please email Marilyn Wroblewski (her email address is in Realm or use admin@ucevanston.org). 

We are still trying to raise $8000 (or more) for the family’s rent. If you can donate any amount, we would be incredibly grateful. If we make enough money, we can help her with childcare as well. 

How to donate: 

Checks can be mailed to The Unitarian Church of Evanston, Refugee Family Fund, 1330 Ridge Avenue, Evanston, IL 60201. Or use this online form and scroll down to “Refugee Family Fund” and enter your amount and fill out the form to donate, as directed.  

If you have already given—thank you so much! If you have not yet done so, please consider helping this family navigate their new life here in the U.S. 

–the Refugee Family Working Group (of the Immigrant Solidarity Team)