Our post of late last week where we reported that the US State Department is saying that thousands of Syrian refugees have been chosen by the UN to be resettled to your towns and cities went through the roof with thousands and thousands of readers passing it around.
They are probably flowing into other small cities as well, but the Triad offices of contractors Church World Service and World Relief-Evangelicals (two of the big nine!) seem especially adept at getting news stories planted. (Just last month see World Relief here and Church World Service in North Carolina, here.)
By the way, back in 2010 there was a huge controversy in this part of North Carolina about too many refugees with lousy care. We wrote a three part story about the problem, which begins with this post. Local churches asked that the flow be slowed. LOL! the series showed what a dog-eat-dog-world the world of federal refugee contracting can be!
From the Winston-Salem Journal:
GREENSBORO — The first in the current wave of Syrian refugees will arrive in the Triad this week, representatives with the organizations helping to resettle them said Friday.
A Syrian family of seven will arrive on Tuesday and will settle in Greensboro, said Sarah Ivory, the director of refugee and immigration services with Church World Service in Greensboro. The family includes five children, the youngest just 5 months old, Ivory said. The oldest is 10 years old.
Andrew Timbie, the office director for World Relief’s High Point office, said his organization is helping to resettle a family in Winston-Salem. That family also will arrive next week, although he would not provide the exact date.
“This is the first of many that we anticipate,” Timbie said of Syrian refugees.
Church World Service and World Relief work with the U.S. State Department and the United Nations to resettle refugees.
Ivory said the family coming to Greensboro is currently living in Jordan. Timbie said on Friday that he did not have a lot of background information about the family his office is assisting.
The organizations receive government money to help give refugee families fresh starts, but the goal is to help the families become self-sufficient, with the help of other community agencies. [At least they are admitting they do it with government money, something we never saw reported in the early years of writing RRW.—ed]
[….]
Ivory said Church World Service is working with the Islamic Center of Greensboro, the Greensboro Jewish Federation and the local Syrian-American community to provide other resources to the family, such as hot meals upon arrival, clothing and diapers.