If you listened to National Public Radio in recent weeks, you may have heard a series by journalist Deborah Amos about a family of Syrian refugees in Princeton. The compelling broadcasts focused on efforts by volunteers from Nassau Presbyterian Church to help settle the family of six, who arrived here last May.
Finding the family a place to live, teaching them English, securing work for the father, who is blind as a result of a mortar attack in Damascus — these are only some of the challenges taken on by the church volunteers. For them and other good samaritans in town, helping refugees in need is a kind of moral and spiritual obligation. They do it quietly, without publicity or a call for recognition.
At the Jewish Center of Princeton, families from Burma and Nicaragua have been the focus of volunteer efforts for 25 years. Currently, members of the congregation are working to aid a woman from Cameroon who is stranded in this country. At Princeton High School, ten undocumented, unaccompanied minors, some of whom have not been in school since the third grade, are learning English and catching up on life skills via the school’s Welcome Center…read more.
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