A LETTER FROM MIRY

Friends and neighbors,

How far we’ve come! Another year, another list of achievements and impact made together. It began with one item for one baby from Syria and a meeting between two moms. Since then, Miry’s List has developed into a full-fledged nonprofit organization employing a staff of 8 serving over 320 families from countries like Syria, Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq. So far we’ve activated over 75,000 American people to help welcome their new neighbors and together we are changing the model for how we welcome newcomers to our country.

I have the immense honor and opportunity to learn about refugee resettlement through the eyes of the families we serve. Most of our families come with just the clothes on their backs, what they can fit in a suitcase, and their immediate family members. They had to leave their homes and most of their belongings behind. They had to say goodbye to special people, places, and things familiar to them. Imagine the sense of loss they carry every single day. Many of our families come here because the neighborhoods they come from no longer exist. But their new ones do.

Connecting new arrival families to American people who want to welcome them and support their resettlement directly counteracts the dehumanizing effects of migration. Migrating with your family can be scary, uncomfortable, isolating, and awkward. Even so, resettling families want what we all want: To feel safe, to feel loved, and to feel important. And each of us has the ability to improve someone else’s experience, and it’s as simple as making a human connection. And who knows where it might lead...maybe a living room picnic, maybe meeting your new best friend...or maybe its a single moment shared. We have no idea what the ripple effect will be, but it begins with making human connections.

Thank you for being present, generous, courageous, and energized to help. Thank you for encouraging and supporting us in so many ways. Thank you for trusting me to lead. Thank you for being part of our beginning, our present, and our future. I am incredibly grateful for my responsibility at the helm of Miry’s List. This magazine is an overview of the impact we made through human connection in 2018, our best year yet.

Together we are amazing.

miry@miryslist.org

Miry, 33 USA, pictured with her sons Reuben, 5 and Sabo, 2.5

Photograph by Christina Gandolfo