Highlights of 2020
Thank You!
In a year like no other,
thanks to our committed supporters and volunteers like you,
we were able to welcome families and respond to urgent needs
Here are just a few examples of the critical work of Hearts & Homes for Refugees in 2020:
WELCOME
Community Sponsorship
Hearts & Homes for Refugees provided:
financial support and volunteers to the Interfaith Council for New Americans-Westchester as they welcomed a family in February, including apartment set up.
guidance and support to Rivertowns for Refugees as they welcomed a young couple in early March.
Both families have also participated in Hearts & Homes for Refugees' ongoing programming, including distributions of clothing, household items food, school supplies and gift cards, and online conversation groups and webinars.
Helping Hands
Hearts & Homes identifies and supports volunteer teams that provide short-term support to refugees and asylees in need, identified by our partner Catholic Charities. In total, we supported 20 Helping Hands cases in 2020, offering assistance to 61 individuals in those families. The estimated value of support in 2020 totaled over $35,700 ($25,950 in cash/gift cards and $12,750 in goods. 818 volunteer hours were contributed, valued at nearly $24,000!
In-Kind Donations
Our Network Winter Drive - co-hosted with Neighbors for Refugees - provided warm coats and boots to over 500 refugees in Westchester, New York City, Connecticut and New Jersey.
Back-to-School - together with volunteers, we provided school supplies to 50 children in Westchester, including those needed for remote schooling such as laptops and at-home white boards.
Through its networks, Hearts & Homes for Refugees also connects refugees with donations, some new, but most of which are free second hand. These items have included space heaters, kitchen appliances, kids’ bicycles, air conditioners, televisions, laptops, and several beds!
Pandemic Response
Emergency Assistance: over $35,000 in cash assistance (in the form of Hearts & Homes Mastercard gift cards) and $8,000 in in kind donations to over 400 refugees, asylees and asylum seekers.
Information Sharing: disseminating reliable and relevant information in the refugee community about the virus and its prevention, the vaccine, unemployment, food distributions/pantries, mental health resources and more.
Volunteers Deliver!: engaging volunteers for contactless deliveries of gift cards and goods across Westchester, as well as to vulnerable families identified by Catholic Charities and HIAS in NYC and NJ.
Masks: Hearts & Homes supported refugees sewists in mask-making with both promotion and financial contributions, and distributed masks to 100 adults and children back in April, when masks were hard to find!
Summer Boredom Buster Bags: we collaborated with Neighbors for Refugees to provide books and games to over 50 families.
CONVENE
While our in-person gatherings of our network were placed on hold in 2020, we have participated in many wonderful online events, including hosting Creating Home Together: Celebrating the welcoming movement in Westchester County - in September 2020. See our video playlist for clips from both refugees and volunteers from this very special evening!
We have also expanded our partnerships and grown our network in 2020, and look forward to sharing the full list in our upcoming Impact Report. Catholic Charities and HIAS continued to be core partnerships for our work in 2020, helping us to identify and support families in need.
EDUCATE
Hearts & Homes for Refugees kicked off 2020 with a presentation to Temple Israel Center of White Plains as part of their Martin Luther King Jr. observation, before shifting to online presentations due to the pandemic. We were invited another 9 times during the year to talk with groups about the global refugee crisis and our local response by civic associations, houses of worship and colleges, including Pelham and Peekskill Rotary, Sarah Lawrence, Manhattan College, Manhattanville College and McGill University, among others.
Interested in a presentation for a group you belong to? Send an email to info@heartsandhomesforrefugees.org to let us know!
ADVOCATE
Hearts & Homes for Refugees participated in and promoted countless pro-refugee and pro-asylum advocacy actions in 2020, including the campaigns #BelongingBeginsWithUs by the Ad Council, #Comments4asylum by the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc., Tear Down Walls, Build Communities by the Interfaith Immigration Coalition, #VoteForWelcome by HIAS, Virtual Welcoming Week by Welcoming America, and many more. We are proud to be part of the HIAS Grassroots Advocacy Leaders group, which meets for monthly updates and shares advocacy information and action alerts.
In September and October, Hearts & Homes founder Kathie O’Callaghan was on calls with Tony Blinken, foreign policy advisor for Biden's 2020 presidential campaign (now U.S. Secretary of State), and with Ariana Berengaut from the Biden Policy Team. Their messages underscored Biden’s commitment to a welcoming America, including increasing the number of refugees admitted to 125,000 in 2021.
We are thrilled to have been a part of laying the groundwork for more community sponsorship in our region to help welcome those families in 2021 and beyond.
HONORS
We are proud to have been recognized for our transparency and accountability, as well as for being great to work with! In 2020 we earned the Platinum Seal of Transparency from GuideStar, and were named a Top-Rated Nonprofit on GreatNonprofits.
If you love and respect our work then tell the world! Leave us a review at GreatNonprofits.org.
THE PEOPLE WHO MAKE IT HAPPEN
None of this would be possible without our donors and volunteers.
In addition to our invaluable volunteers, whose contributions of time are outlined above, individual, foundation, corporate and group donations sustained our work throughout the year.