Looking for donations of furniture, household items
Build a Village needs the community’s help to outfit two homes for a pair of refugee families arriving in the area over the next few weeks.
The non-profit’s Ray Loewen explains they’re expecting a widowed mother and her young son, who are originally from Eritrea but have been refugees in Egypt of late, to arrive next week.
A second family—a mother, father, and their four children—originally from Syria but arriving here from Lebanon, will be in town the first week of April.
“Rental housing is always hard to find, but we were fortunate enough to find an apartment and a house for the two families that are coming,” Loewen says. “Now we’re looking to furnish them. We need everything from beds to couches to kitchen tables—basically everything that goes into setting up a household.”
They’ve put a call out for donations of gently used furniture and household items and hope to have both houses set up for the families as soon as possible. Loewen is confident they’ll be able to get it done in time.
“The community has always been phenomenal,” he says. “Every time we put out a call either for money or for volunteers or for household items or whatever, the response has always been just really, really good.”
If you have items you think the families could use, you can connect with Loewen to donate them by calling 204-324-7786 or emailing him at ray@westparkgm.com.
“We already have possession of both the house and the apartment, so we can start accepting items right away,” he says.
50 families and counting
Build a Village has been sponsoring refugee families to come to Canada for over two decades.
“It started in response to the earthquakes that happened in El Salvador,” Loewen says. “The first couple of years we were raising money and sending teams to build homes.
“Then we started sponsoring refugee families. Over the last 20 years, roughly 20 years, we’ve sponsored about 50 different refugee families, 200 and some people.”
The families have come from all over the world.
“Unfortunately, there are so many troubled areas in the world right now,” Loewen says. “We’ve had people coming from Venezuela, from Syria, from Sudan, from Eritrea—just all over the place.”
Some have stayed for a few years and then moved on to be nearer to family or pursue other opportunities elsewhere in Canada.
“But we’ve also has quite a few that have come to Altona and have stayed here,” Loewen says.
The two families coming this spring both have loved ones already calling the area home, which should make things a little bit easier for them as they settle into their new life in Canada.
“Some of the first families that arrived 20 years ago, we had nobody in the community that was from their country of origin, nobody that spoke their language,” Loewen recalls. “So that was really hard on some of the first families.
“Now, there’s already a group of Arabic speaking people in the community, so when somebody from Syria comes, there’s so many people they can communicate with.”
Build a Village volunteers are also on hand to walk alongside families through their first years in Canada, offering support and guidance as they settle in.
It’s been a wonderful experience welcoming newcomers to the area, says Loewen.
“There is such a huge need for it. When Build a Village started sponsoring refugees, there was something like 25 million refugees in the world. Today, with all the conflicts that have surfaced in the last bunch of years, the number of refugees is up to about 125 million.
“Once you’ve been involved with some of the families, when you hear their stories, when you listen to what they’ve gone through, it’s good that we can be a bit of assistance to at least a couple families.”
Loewen also has a very personal reason for wanting to be involved.
“My mom came to Canada from Ukraine when she was a little girl, so somebody was willing to help their family get settled in Canada,” he shares. “I want to pay that forward.”
