Our New American staff and volunteers have been working tirelessly these past months, providing services and support to our clients here and in the Berkshires. Some recent highlights include:
- Providing over 100K to Afghan evacuees in emergency rental and utilities assistance from a special Massachusetts allocation to help families adjust and build a home here in Western Massachusetts. JFS looks forward to distributing 200K more to families in the coming months.
- Providing 150 Ukrainians with emergency cash aid with help from the Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts.
- In the Berkshires, many of our Afghan clients completed their driver’s education classroom course, and are starting their on-the-road driver’s education. All Berkshires arrivals eligible and ready to work are employed as of this month!
- Between April and May, we resettled a Burmese single and a Ukrainian refugee family of six.
- To date, we have enrolled 17 refugee youth in the JCC Summer Camp, and are continuing to enroll more in other city summer camps.
- We organized an in-store pharmacy orientation for our Afghan women’s group and we guided them to purchase over $1,000 of hygiene and at-home medical supplies, and they also participated in a grocery store WIC orientation.
- With support from HIAS and The Philanthropic Institute, Congolese parents involved in our parenting group are taking long awaited behind-the-wheel lessons to get their driver’s licenses. Soon they’ll be able to drive their kids to programs, and get to work and navigate their communities more easily.
- Our Match Savings Program is well underway, with refugees and evacuees beginning to make deposits matched 1:1 by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services.
