Big Y and Saints on the Shoreline (SOS) have announced the award of $4,000 from the proceeds of its charity golf tournament to SOS a team of volunteers working with IRIS (Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services). These volunteers are all members of the shoreline community along with a group of churches from Guilford, Madison, and Clinton.

SOS has sponsored and resettled two families of refugees in the area and has assisted a third family who arrived without a sponsor. Big Y became aware of this effort last fall, when Cynthia Damer of North Guilford Congregational Church asked Josh Cameron, the manager of Big Y in Guilford, for a gift card to purchase food for the anticipated arrival of a family from Afghanistan.

Ultimately, this request resulted in SOS receiving a $100 gift card from Big Y. To sponsor a family, SOS was required to raise over $15,000 before their arrival. This was to cover expenses of housing, completely furnishing an apartment, providing clothing, food, medical care, transportation, legal assistance, educational assistance with English lessons, and school for the children, and help with finding employment. A daunting task.

Additionally, each member of the teams listed above was required by IRIS to take 6 hours of training and go through background checks for the security of all involved. Saints on the Shoreline is extremely grateful to Big Y, an American-owned company based in Springfield, Massachusetts, for this donation which will be used in our ongoing efforts in refugee resettlement.