The coalition, based out of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, is working with Buffalo-based Journey’s End Refugee Resettlement agency, which is now operating a satellite office in donated space at St. Luke’s.

Reverend Luke Fodor said the coalition is working with two groups of people, “Both asylum seeking folks and refugees. There’s a distinction between the two groupings of people. Those who are asylum seeking have entered the country and asked for asylum based upon some exigency in their home countries. Legally crossed and presented themselves to the border guards and then been released under their own recognizance. That’s the legal process in the United States. And then they are then allowed to go where they want.”

Fodor said the asylum seeking families are from Colombia with the refugee families that came from Congo being in Jamestown for about a month.

He said asylum seekers in the United States cannot get a work permit for at least a year, “….or a limited resource of public assistance and that even is a difficult process to navigate. And then the refugees are able to come into the country because of the process they were brought into. They’re able to get public assistance and then also to get right into the workforce as long as they have the language skills and right placement.”

Fodor said while at least one refugee from the Congo has found employment, the asylum seekers from Colombia are dependent on help from the community to meet needs like food access, rent payments, and more.

Jamestown Public Market Director Linnea Haskin said the people from Colombia are offering food on Sundays at St. Luke’s Church from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., “But then they also hope to open a stand at the Farmer’s Market where they will be offering empanadas, arepas, and all of their delicious salsas. And so, for a donation of a minimum of $10, but whatever you can offer, you then get a delicious meal. And that money goes through the fund at St. Luke’s that we then utilize to purchase things that the family needs.”

Financial donations can be made to the New Neighbors Coalition fund set up at the Chautauqua Region Community Foundation by visiting https://www.crcfonline.org/. St. Luke’s Episcopal Church is also accepting donations through a paypal donation page at: http://bit.ly/3IH1Lxj

For more information, follow https://www.facebook.com/NewNeighborsCoalition/

St. Luke’s Episcopal Church Reverend Luke Fodor said discussions on bringing refugees to the area started around 13 months ago with final preparations now happening in order to be ready to accept families in the next couple months.

He said Journeys End Refugee Services in Buffalo has hired Beth Litton to staff the Jamestown site. Litton previously worked in refugee resettlement in Nashville. St. Luke’s Church will provide an in-kind office and meeting space for Journey’s End to do their work.

Fodor said the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Jamestown has also agreed to serve as a drop off point for new or gently used household items to outfit apartments for new arrivals. Those items can be brought to 1255 Prendergast Avenue. For additional information, contact Home Again Committee chair Janet Forbes via email at jlforbes@hotmail.com

Fodor said commitees have been established to assist with the work to bring refugees to Jamestown and that these committees need volunteers.

The committees include the Executive Committee, Housing, Health & Human Services; Education, Employment, Home Again, and Transportation.

He said those interested in these efforts should attend the New Neighbors Coordinating Committee at 3:30 p.m. today in St. Luke’s Episcopal Church’s Undercroft.

For more information, contact Reverand Fodor at 716-483-6405.

St. Luke’s Episcopal Church‘s Father Luke Fodor gives an update on efforts with Journey’s End Refugee Services to prepare for bringing “new neighbors” to Jamestown.

St. Luke’s Episcopal Church

Father Luke Fodor said Journey’s End will be opening a satellite office in Jamestown as both groups work on the “New Neighbors” program, “They’re applying for grant dollars to do that under a grant that’s really tied to the Ukrainian effort. And so as they expand a little bit into our region, they’re going to be using the volunteers that we’ve coalesced to help assist in many of these things.

Fodor said while they’re not expecting the arrival of refugees, or “new neighbors,” just yet in Jamestown, there are two programs ready to be implemented including the Community Sponsorship program, “Local partnership groups will raise about $3,000 to assist with some rental assistance (for refugees) for these first couple months while they’re getting themselves situated into the workforce and having the immediate needs they need met. And so we’ll have four to six people from various civic or church-based groups to be there as kind of a one-to-one support team.”

Fodor said an initial training for the Community Sponsorship Program will be held from 9:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., Saturday, September 10 at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church. He said a Cultural Competency Training is also required and will be offered virtually in late September or early October. Other future trainings will be available for those unable to make the one on Saturday.

Fodor said another program that anyone can help with is the donation of used or slightly used household items, “You have to remember that our new neighbors, unlike some other neighbors who might pull up in a truck and unload, fill up their apartments; these new neighbors are coming with really just the clothes on their backs. They’ve been in a dire situation, whether from war torn Ukraine or other war torn parts of our globe. And they’re coming with just the little that they have.”

Fodor said a centralized site for donations is still being worked on. He said financial donations can also now be sent to the Chautauqua Region Community Foundation with “New Neighbors” noted in the donation.

Refugee seminar at the Robert H. Jackson Center held on March 31, 2022

Over 80 people attended a program on refugees at the Robert H. Jackson Center Thursday night.

The event was hosted by St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, the New Neighbor Coordinating Committee, and featured members of refugee resettlement organization, Journey’s End. It was the first public discussion on issues around resettling people forced to leave their home country.

Journey’s End CEO Karen Andolina Scott said Thursday was the first formal meeting between her organization and the New Neighbor Coordinating Committee. She said they’re still in the information gathering stage of the process of looking into making Jamestown a refugee resettlement community, “But we loved everything that we had to hear today. It seems like the community is really excited about this and also taking it very seriously, which we appreciate. We did acknowledge some of the challenges in the refugee resettlement program which is always really helpful as well that people aren’t expecting something that the program isn’t.”

Scott said conversations still need to happen with Journey’s End national office and with New York State, “And then really thinking about the practicalities of, are there apartments ready and available for us that we could use? Is the school district ready? Are there community partners here that would be willing to share in this work? And then, what do we think the client will look like who will be really successful here? Is it the single clients? Is it large families? Is it someone with a particular medical need that maybe Jamestown has great facilities in helping to service.”

Scott said it was wonderful to see so many people come out for the event who are passionate about moving the process forward.

The full presentation will be re-broadcast on 107.9 WRFA at 2:00 p.m., Friday, April 1 and at 11:00 a.m., Sunday, April 3.

The New Neighbor Coordinating Committee, which came out of the refugee resettlement discussion held in December, announced the event which will discuss the financial, legal, and humanitarian issues involving the resettlement of people forced to leave their home country.

The program will feature Journey’s End Executive Director Karen Scott and other community members. Journey’s End is a Christian community-based organization in Buffalo, New York whose mission is to welcome refugees without regard to ethnic origin or creed and to assist them to become healthy, independent, contributing members of the community.

The panel begins at 5:00 p.m. and is open to the public.

Refugee Resettlement Discussion at St. Luke’s Episcopal held in December 2021

Saint Luke’s Episcopal Church is moving forward with an initiative to bring refugees to Jamestown.

Church Pastor Luke Fodor said Saint Luke’s took hold of the initiative following a meeting held last Fall to gauge interest in Jamestown becoming a resettlement community. He said after the start of the new year, he’s spoke with School Superintendent Dr. Kevin Whitaker to make sure the school district was willing to be on board, “And then we just started putting people together. Been meeting every other week. I discovered that we have a ringer in our community. My wife works at the Jamestown Community Learning Council with Beth (Litton) and she said, ‘Well, you know we have an employee who did refugee resettlement for seven years down in Nashville. Do you think she’d be helpful?’ I said, ‘Hell yeah!'”

Beth Litton said during the time she volunteered and then worked as a Refugee Clinic Manager at Siloam Health, the populations of people she worked with shifted a bit, “So, a lot of times it’s maybe a couple years out of a war or a conflict in a certain region that we’ll start to see families arriving from those countries. So, I worked with arrivals from Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Burma.. all over.”

Fodor said Saint Luke’s is working with refugee resettlement agency, Journey’s End, which is located in Buffalo, “The timeframe is still being negotiated because they are overwhelmed. We’re still working out many of the details as far as when we might start seeing some families coming down and who that would be. Initial conversations have talked about two families and then we would just kind of build this program out.”

You can hear the full interview with Pastor Luke Fodor and Jamestown Community Learning Council’s Beth Litton on Community Matters at 5pm this Thursday on WRFA.