On World Refugee Day we took 72,927 steps for refugees.
Walking 1 mile alone doesn’t seem like much. In fact it’s only about 2,701 steps, but when we work together and combine our steps, we can cover a lot more ground!
And we did, thanks to a group of 27 community members and Canopy staff who participated in UNHCR’s #stepwithrefugees on World Refugee Day.
We also delivered some gift baskets filled with all kinds of goodies to our recently arrived refugee families to honor and welcome them.
If you think about it, the #stepwithrefugees walk is a beautiful picture of our community’s story. Alone and in our respective spaces, we couldn’t accomplish much when it came to helping refugees. But when a group of Northwest Arkansans got together at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church 3 years ago, the unifying piece being a deep concern to do something about the refugee crisis, we ended up starting a refugee resettlement site!
To date, we’ve welcomed 153 people! That’s amazing ya’ll!
And now for some good news…
We’ve just recently had 5 new cases assigned to us! This is really exciting, and means families are moving out of dangerous and unsustainable situations and will begin rebuilding their lives right here in Northwest Arkansas. What this also means is that each of these families needs a group of Arkansans to help them adjust to life here in the Ozarks.
Quite simply, we need co-sponsor groups or mentor teams.
These typically look like communities of faith or groups of friends. If you’re interested, have questions, or are ready to say “I’m in!”, email lauren.snodgrass@canopynwa.org. You can also read more about co-sponsorship below. These are exciting times, friends. Join us!
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