Kids attending Vacation Bible School at Parkway Christian Church in Davie, FL focused on helping welcome refugee kids to their community. Photo: Kristin Simms
“I can’t imagine leaving everything I had to go to someplace new where I had nothing”
Vacation Bible School Student
Every day in communities around the country, refugee kids are learning a new language, a new culture, and heading off to new schools – often without much understanding about what they should bring on the first day. Because refugees arrive year round, there’s always a need for school supplies to help them get started. One church in Florida understood this and came together to collect school supplies for the local CWS office to distribute to refugee children as they arrive in the United States.
Pastor Brooke Anthony of Parkway Christian Church in Davie FL was looking for a hands-on project that would connect the 250 kids in Vacation Bible School to the needs in their own community. “I wanted a mission focus that might be meaningful to our kids and make an impact locally,” she says. After looking at the projects created by Disciples Home Missions, a partner of CWS, she decided to focus on filling backpacks for refugee kids.
Each day of bible school, kids brought a different school supply. Every day, they would go to a different mission station to engage in the project. One day they might bring rulers to donate and write welcome cards at a mission station. The next, they might bring crayons and help assemble the backpacks, filling them with the different supplies kids brought throughout the week.
Silvio Padilla, director of the CWS Immigration & Refugee Program in Palm Beach, participated by speaking to kids in groups, telling them about the different places refugee children come from, what schools might look like in their home countries or in the places they fled to, and what kinds of needs they might have once they arrive in the United States.
“It was great for me, being there,” says Padilla. “The kids would ask, ‘How can we help? What more can we do?’
Kids attending Vacation Bible School at Parkway Christian Church in Davie, FL focused on helping welcome refugee kids to their community. Photo: Kristin Simms
“The most important thing for me, especially for the younger kids, is to help them understand what other people are feeling,” says Pastor Brooke.
The project had the desired effect. Teachers overheard students saying things like, “I can’t imagine leaving everything I had to go to someplace new where I had nothing,” and “I would be so sad to leave my house.”
Padilla reports receiving 180 individual bags filled with school supplies and welcome cards. The CWS office is using those bags to help refugee children as they head off to their first day of school soon after they arrive.
“Everybody thought it was really great, really exciting,” says Pastor Brooke, speaking about the congregation at Parkway Christian. “I like that this was a tactile project. I liked that our kids knew that these things were going to kids who were just like them to help them adjust. I like that they were helping others and welcoming them to the community.”
“It’s extremely important to have churches involved,” adds Padilla. “It’s important for our families to know that it isn’t just us at the agency supporting them. They need to know that community supports them, too.”
Click here to find a CWS Immigration & Refugee Program office or affiliate near you.
Erika Iverson works for CWS’s Immigration and Refugee Program in New York City.