AMAZING

By Susan Olsen, Donor & Volunteer Family Ambassador, Miry’s List

You did it — AGAIN! You helped another new family make a home in America, gift by gift. You cleared the Khalili’s list — an iron, a juicer, blankets, microwaves, pots and pans, and more. And plenty of gift cards so that they are able to make purchases as they need them this year, a year that’s hard for everyone, and incredibly difficult for some.

Thank you! You are amazing.

Friends, your generosity was especially poignant for me as I traveled home last week to be by my mom’s side as she was dying. She was already in the hospital for hernia surgery in December when I sent out the first email to you all — and asked you to find room in your hearts this holiday to support one more newly arriving family. By the first week of the New Year, when you had made nearly every purchase, my mom’s doctors had discovered metastatic brain cancer, and my brother and sister and I had decided to bring her home from the hospital to die with the help of Hospice, her children by her side. She passed early in the morning of January 15th. And she is now no doubt, according to her good friend and minister, “dancing with angels” and at peace.

Whatever your beliefs about angels, etc., my mom embodied goodness, and lived a life on earth that was defined by generosity, compassion, and openness. Angelic, by any measure. As I wrote to you last Summer, at the start of the first Miry’s List campaign, my parents' sponsorship of a Cambodian family in the mid-1970’s was formative in shaping my understanding of love — its transcendent power, its boundlessness — and family. For my mom, the idea of family was sacred and expansive. Nothing was more important than family, and there was always room in our family for one more member.

You may never really know how your love — however you show it — will change a life. But condolences for my mom this weekend were filled with testaments to the lifelong impact of her good works. These are words of thanks from two members of my mom’s “family” who arrived from Cambodia over forty years ago:

“Myrna renewed our faith, gave us hope and love while we were trying to rebuild our lives here. Words cannot express our gratitude for Myrna's love for all of us. When I am writing this email, my mind is flashing back to July 22,1975. Your Mom, the Williams, Father Swanson, Bob and a few of our friends came to welcome our

In loving memory of Myrna Olsen

family at Dulles Airport. Since then Myrna became my sister beside my older sister who got killed by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. I love her dearly. She is beautiful inside out. She spent a lot of time to help my family settle down in United States. Thanks to the Olsen family for welcoming us with open arms. I can never thank you all enough for your help.”

Thank you again, my dear friends, for answering the call to help the Khalili family — as they, like the Reang’s years before, start their lives over again in a new country. And thank you, too, for allowing me to share both the news of my mom’s passing and a brief insight into who she was while she lived, what she inspires in me, and the legacy that she leaves. u

Financial sustainability doesn’t happen in isolation by finding a new revenue strategy. Rather, greater sustainability is achieved when there is alignment between the impact an organization has and the revenue strategy that supports it. Therefore, our sustainability work at Miry’s List is focused on our business model, understanding the true costs of each activity we engage in and the impact it delivers. By aligning these components, the impact and financial strategies become reinforcing – growing and evolving as Miry’s List achieves its mission.

What is “sustainable” is constantly changing as the environment in which Miry’s List operates changes. Sustainability is an orientation, not a destination. As such, our process promotes shared leadership over the business model and a common understanding of the Miry’s List’s impact and financial drivers. We leverage tools and templates to allow leaders to share insights and make ongoing strategic decisions to meet this dual-bottom line of our organization.

Sustainability By investing deeply in the development of dedicated volunteer networks and community-based infrastructure for resettling families, Miry’s List builds capacity for and commitment to supporting refugee families.

Miry’s List is dedicated to engaging deeply with our families and individuals who have gone through the program, who often demonstrate enthusiasm and passion to pay it forward to help the families coming after them. Miry’s List’s entire Family Services staff, including Rafid and Ayman, is composed of people who themselves experienced resettlement with their families and went through Miry’s List’s programming when they arrived in the United States.

For example, Rabia Ahmadi, Director of Family Services at Miry’s List, recently received a message from a father in Sacramento that read “Thank you very much Miry’s List...I want to return the favor by participating in your program for new arrivals. If there is any newly arrived family, I would be happy to contribute. I can’t promise anything but I will try my best to find some essential stuff for them.” Our work is empowering to our recipients, fostering a culture of philanthropy, friendship, and community, and continuing the cycle of giving. u