Sponsorship Program
With Refugee Care Collective, sponsorship is a radical act of partnership. With your help, we’re looking to give 20 refugee families prioritized support in 2020. Through this program, each refugee family will remain within RCC’s care for one year, receiving weekly relational support through volunteers and over $1,000 of household items as they restart their lives.
We invite you to consider partnering with us to sponsor a refugee family, through a one-time contribution of $2,500.
REFUGEE FAMILIES RECEIVE:
• Weekly Relational Support – Through family mentorship, English tutoring, and/or youth mentorship, RCC will come alongside each family in the ways they desire and need most, with volunteers showing up to their home on a weekly basis. RCC volunteers receive initial training and ongoing coaching, and will step into a weekly rhythm with the family, sharing meals together, teaching English or tutoring children in school, navigating through hard things, celebrating successes, and ultimately, partnering with the family as they rebuild their lives in Portland. RCC commits to walking with the family, working to achieve self-sufficiency in a trauma-informed and culturally responsive way.
• Restart Kits – Filled with the essential household items needed on a daily basis, restart kits meet a tangible need, and also communicate a message of welcome better than anything else can. From brand new pots and pans, sheets and comforters, bath towels and cleaning supplies, these items allow families to spend initial grant funds on their first month of rent, instead of on the items they need day to day. A complete list of restart kit items can be found here.
• Above all, your giving gives hope. Hope looks like opening up a restart kit and finding brand new kitchen dishes, or someone showing up to your home with a warm jacket. It looks like having a conversation in English that a newcomer thought they may never have, or parents participating in a school conference for their kids for the first time. It’s teenagers feeling comfortable in school, and it’s a single mom finally making a friend. Hope is a signpost that better things are ahead.
SPONSORSHIP DETAILS
There are a lot of things that come to mind when we think about how we do sponsorship in the United States, and we want to make sure we’re doing it in a way that both protects and brings dignity to those we’re serving. That looks like honoring the story and the future of families that are coming into our communities.
We believe that each refugee family should have choice and agency both in their own story and choosing how it’s shared. Sponsors will receive the family’s country of origin, the number of people in the family, and the range of ages of any children. Out of respect to each family, personal details including names, photos, and other identifying information will be withheld. Through this sponsorship model, partners experience being a part of a refugee family’s story in a meaningful way, while empowering the family to rebuild their lives here in Portland.
