Philanthropy Today
Philanthropy Today
Manhattan Area Resettlement Team on the GMCF Community Hour Show Episode - 228
Virginia Rodriguez, Executive Director of the Manhattan Area Resettlement Team (MART), shares how the organization has helped over 250 refugees establish new lives in Kansas since 2021. From airport pickups to job placement to navigating complex documentation, MART provides comprehensive support that has helped many refugees achieve self-sufficiency in just a few years.
• MART began in 2021 following the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan
• Currently serving 175 active clients with many others now self-sufficient
• Refugees come from diverse countries including Afghanistan, Congo, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Haiti
• The organization helps with housing, employment, school enrollment, and documentation
• Approximately 100 clients have been placed in jobs in Manhattan
• 70-80 active volunteers assist with various services including translation
• A single mother success story showcases how MART helped navigate childcare and employment challenges
• New fundraising campaign "Rooted in Welcome, Growing in Hope" aims to raise $165,000
• Funds will expand English language training and job readiness programs
• A matching donor will double contributions up to $50,000
Donations can be made through Venmo, the Greater Manhattan Community Foundation, or at allieswelcome.com.
Philanthropy Today is brought to you by the Greater Manhattan Community Foundation. In this episode we feature a recently broadcast segment of the GMCF Community Hour, as heard on NewsRadio KMAN. Welcome back to the GMCF Community Hour. I'm Dave Lewis. Our guest in this segment is Virginia Rodriguez, and Virginia is the executive director as of recently, I guess we could say of the Manhattan Area Resettlement Team, and this is your first time on our show. Thanks and welcome.
Speaker 2:Thank you for the invite, Dave.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so this is I follow along with what happens with Mart Anna, previous director is involved in the church that I attend, at the Mennonite Church, so I have a little bit of a background on what all you do and this is an effort. That probably what the history is, what three, four years 2021,.
Speaker 2:Since 2021, yes.
Speaker 1:Okay, so that's four years, so I wasn't that far off. That's rare for me to be that much on target, but this is your first time. You've been in the job for just a few months now.
Speaker 2:And the job prep. Yeah, in this position for a few months, but I've been with MART since 2021. Gotcha.
Speaker 1:Okay. Well, why don't you give us a little bit of a background on you before we jump into our talk about MART?
Speaker 2:Sure. So I started with Mar, just with my previous position at the school district, just trying to help Mar with the new arrivals, relocating them here, trying to make that transition as easy as possible for children to be enrolled in schools, for parents to understand our school system. And then I took a year sabbatical with my husband and then when I came back I just landed in the position as a programs manager, specifically just working with these federal funded programs directly to provide services to our refugees employability, refugee health promotions, english language training and so on.
Speaker 1:There are a lot of factors in this, aren't there?
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so how did MART initially get started in 2021?
Speaker 2:So it all started with the withdrawal of our American troops from Afghanistan. If you remember, in 2021, we have here in town in Manhattan, aaron Estabrook and Fatima Jagouri, who were already organizing how to bring our allies here back to safety. As it started with two people, it grew exponentially as they were partnering with organizations people different religious organizations as well, people different religious organizations as well and after that, starting October 2021, we received our first family here in Manhattan.
Speaker 1:How many?
Speaker 2:do you work with now? Oh, we have active clients. We have 175 active clients, but we have served over 250 clients in the last years.
Speaker 2:Goodness, that's a lot of work in four years' time, isn't it? It is a lot of work, but these numbers show also the resilience in how these programs are working well with our clients. So many of these clients have already migrated out of town. Others' clients have just exited our programs because they're already self-sufficient. They just don't need us anymore. They know how to navigate our community. They know how to find jobs. They know how to you know understand what, how to rent a house, understand our health system. Um, so it's, it's. It has been a process. It's a. It's a. I will say it's a very hard process, but once you get there, you will see the results fast enough.
Speaker 1:What are some of the specific things that you assist them with?
Speaker 2:So we started assisting them from arrival, so we get notifications when they are coming. We're starting preparing housing, housing items, clothing and picking them up at the airport transportation. Picking them up at the airport transportation and their initial evaluation assessment job assessment, trying to understand what are the skills that these families are bringing into a community and trying to match it with the demands that are here in the community. At the same time, enrolling in school, provide them medical screenings, all the basic needs that are needed from documentation, helping them completing social security cards, employment authorization cards and just showing them around.
Speaker 1:I would imagine that the paperwork aspect has got to be one of the more challenging things, because there's so many different intricate fingers that everybody is reaching in that are trying to get the documents they need in order to be self-sustaining in the community.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we try to work like an orchestra because there are things that need to kind of come in place at the same time. So we need, of course, an employment authorization card in order to find a job, but at the same time, we cannot wait until we have the physical. We still need to start getting that job for that person while the process is going on. The same with housing, I mean, we cannot wait to have all the documents that are required to get to rent a house. We still need to have to negotiate with landlords, property management company over here, to say, yeah, the paperwork is coming. You need to be we need to be a little bit flexible in these cases and it has worked out very well.
Speaker 1:Does it help a property owner or manager to have some confidence in the fact that these documents will show up? By helping these individuals through MARC?
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, yes. So we try to introduce ourselves, what our agency does and show all the partnerships that we created here in town. Already we have several companies working partnering with us to facilitate that process and so far it has worked. Of course we have some bumps and downs, but it has worked very well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, do you know how many people you've placed in jobs here in Manhattan?
Speaker 2:Specifically numbers. I would say close to 100, but yeah, more or less.
Speaker 1:That's a pretty good percentage of all those that have come in. How many? And do you keep track of the number of nationalities of individuals that you have come through the doors? Yes, we do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we have people from Afghanistan, we have people from Congo, we have people from Venezuela, people from Nicaragua, guatemala, haiti, nepal and African Central Republic.
Speaker 1:Many of them from south of the equator, then yes. Okay, well, there's boy sounds like there's a lot that you got your fingers in with all the different things that you need to assist them with.
Speaker 2:Right, including language as well. So we need to provide interpretation, translation, which sometimes is a challenge.
Speaker 1:Do you find a lot of individuals that just really are waiting to come and help with these individuals that need that assistance?
Speaker 2:Yes, so our pool of volunteers is active. Active volunteer is close to, I will say, 70, 80 people. We have more volunteers that when they have time they come, but active, active. We have 70, 80 volunteers that they are just ready. I mean, just let me know how we can help and they're ready to jump in and help us.
Speaker 1:Lots of times we'll ask an individual in your capacity if you have a client story that you can share, something that someone's come in the doors and they probably were rather bewildered as to what their future may be like here in this town in the center of the United States of America, and what do they have? Give us one of those stories.
Speaker 2:There are a few stories oh, I bet there is one that really highlights the resilience of the refugees and it's no different from what could happen to any of us here. So we have the case of a single mom coming here with a basic knowledge of English no network support network over here trying to juggle between, hey, finding a job and childcare. You need to find a job, right, but you need to childcare. First a childcare, but in order to find childcare, you need to have a job right, but you need to child care first, a child care.
Speaker 2:But in order to find child care, you need to have a job, exactly so how do we manage? So we spent months trying to align those things at the same time, trying aligned at the same starting date for the child care the same day. It was a six-month job of trying to do that.
Speaker 1:Six months it took you to figure that out. Yes, just for one family.
Speaker 2:Just one single mom. I think probably was one of the hardest cases that we've had. But this was in six months. Took us that. Um so, but this was in six months. Took us that. But in less than six months this person has already moved on and completed a nail technician program at the Luce Academy. She graduated from there, uh, with our assistant, and she is already in less than a year and a half. She is independent, self-sufficient. She's working as a nail technician right now and her child is at school, so it'll work out really well at the end.
Speaker 1:You are an organization. No, you're a nonprofit. We're a nonprofit and you may just briefly state. You briefly state what your income comes from. How do you support all this activity? Do you have staff? You're the executive director and you talked about 70 volunteers. That takes some human, human resources.
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely so. We receive. Our 90% of our budget comes from the federal government. The rest come from donations, fundraising and whatnot. We have currently four full-time staff in our office Our volunteer coordinator. She is a volunteer, so the one that is in charge is just doing volunteer work trying to organize, interview our volunteers, schedule their times with our clients or whatever job is needed in our office.
Speaker 1:And you had mentioned that you do have some grant money but you do fundraising. Yes, and tell me what practices you have been engaged in when it comes to fundraising.
Speaker 2:So right now I'm going to start with right now because we are just kind of launching our fundraising for this year we have a name and our name is rooted in welcome, growing in hope. We wanted a name to really describe our community. Our community has been very welcome to our mission, very welcome to our clients, and they're still the same as our clients. They are very resilient, they still have hope that we can provide service and this be a place where they can, most of them, settle and and start a new life. Our goal this year is to reach $165,000. We aim to use these resources in expanding our English language training program, more specifically, in development and job skills we have so far.
Speaker 2:We have a small group of clients who wants to go into the medical service area, so we want to kind of create something that will help them build the vocab that they need, the skills that they need, so they can go if they want to go to nursing school or if they want to go to medical school, if they want to go to be a dentist, and the other part is also referred to job readiness.
Speaker 2:So we want not just to help them that we already are also referred to job readiness. So we want not just to help them that we already are, helping them to create resumes, to help them how to complete job applications but we want them also to understand the system. What are your benefits when you are just signing a contract? What are the things that you are responsible for signing a contract? What are the things that you are responsible for to um and, at the same time, help them, empower them in knowing that the first job is going to no, it's not going to be the only job that they're going to get, or they are able, as, as they get into the industry, whatever industry it is, they have opportunities. They will have opportunities later on to improve their life, get a better paid job and be successful. So this is our main goal for the fundraising campaign. We have a generous donor that will match every contribution up to $50,000.
Speaker 1:Really now. Yes, it's nice to have somebody like that that can help out.
Speaker 2:It is so. That's what we wanted to focus like a welcome community, a very supported community, and it's reflected on this.
Speaker 1:We wanted to be reflected on this campaign. So what are you doing for this fundraising? How can someone find out and get involved?
Speaker 2:We are just getting right now, so this is very new.
Speaker 1:This is the first time we're talking about it. Don't have everything in place yet.
Speaker 2:Yes, if you're going to make a donation from now until the end of the year, please, you can either Venmo us, send a check through the Greater Manhattan Community Foundation or through our web page. These are the places that you can make a donation.
Speaker 1:That website is Allies, welcome Allies, as you would spell it, a-l-l-i-e-s, and the word welcome allieswelcomecom. Her name is Virginia Rodriguez and you know you've helped a couple hundred people become residents of the community and find places for their kids and help them adjust to a new world, and I can imagine that that would be difficult, especially in today's uncertain times in terms of what is happening, you know, from a financial perspective, and you know it takes a brave soul to do that. So congratulations and thank you for doing so.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 1:And continue good wishes with MART, the Manhattan Area Resettlement Team, Virginia Rodriguez. Once again. Their website is allieswelcomecom. Richard Stitt will be back in just a couple of moments with Morningstar. We'll get an update on their activities. He's got an announcement that surprised me when I saw it on the sheet. We'll talk about that in a little bit here on the GMCF Community Hour, here on NewsRadio KMAN.