As part of plans to welcome 30 families of Syrian refugees to Rutland, VT, the local group Rutland Welcomes sponsors a weekly class in basic Arabic at the Unitarian Church. This is last week’s session with teacher Morgan Denehy (in blue shirt). No families have yet arrived, but the first are expected soon or in early 2017.
Volunteer Marsha Cassel surveys donated furniture in the former Rutland Herald press room wearing a T-shirt selected for the occasion.
Rutland, Vermont, has had its share of difficulties in the past few decades, but community members have volunteered to welcome 30 Syrian refugee families that will be resettled in Vermont through the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program. The local group preparing for the refugees is Rutland Welcomes. Its members have stockpiled items refugees will need at locations around the small city at the foot of the Green Mountains in west-central Vermont and are working with landlords to locate suitable apartments. Last Saturday Rutland Welcomes held a furniture donation drop and brought the donations to join the furniture collected over the past few months and stored in the basement of the Rutland Herald.
The first few families of refugees should start arriving in early December and others are to continue arriving into the spring and early summer.
Rutland Welcomes information is here.
Below, Rutland Welcomes member Barbara Richter with the furniture-drop crew Saturday and checking a donated recliner. And the scene back at the Herald with volunteers Cassel and Jim Hill.
