All Saints’ Refugee Ministries

Hello sunshines,

Over the past four months, I had the joy of interning with All Saints’ Refugee Ministries. In this internship we assisted refugee families who are new to the U.S., arriving in December 2024 - January 2025. I primarily worked with four refugee families, specifically from Afghanistan, Burundi, Congo, and Rwanda. Additionally, I worked with younger students from various countries in the All Saints’ zoom tutoring program. One of the pillars of this volunteer-based refugee program is that it is a consent based program aiming to build self-sufficiency— there is no effort to convert any of the families to Christianity (in fact 30% of the volunteers are not church-goers), and we ask (often with virtual translators) the families what they want assistance with rather than assuming. Most of our assistance centers helping them grocery shop, learn basic English phrases, navigate MARTA to increase physical freedom, explore tourist attractions to establish community, obtain EBT benefits and GA IDs, organize paperwork, etc.

When we learned of the Trump administration’s cuts to refugee programs, we learned that over 20 employees of our partnered refugee agency were fired in one day. Next, we learned that our families would no longer receive six months of rent, utilities, and support from the associated government agencies. Instead, it was all immediately cut. The attached image is from the All Saints’ Refugee Ministries’ Gala on March 29th, 2025, where we celebrated raising over six months of funds for each of our families. Since then we have been able to secure the funds and volunteer support to take on assisting two new families on top of our existing four.