30 | MARCH 23 • 2023 

Michigan. 
Somers recalled the day in early 
August 2022, when Fahim attended a 
JCOR meeting with the news that there 
was a family arriving from Colombia 
in a little over a week that needed 
sponsorship. He wondered: Would they 
have ample time to help the family get 
settled? Within two days, the group 
committed to sponsoring the family and 
kicked into high gear. They had been 
training for weeks to be prepared for this 
very moment. 
JCOR operates with distinct teams 
addressing education, healthcare, 
cultural orientation, on-call needs, 
housing and welcoming, finance, 
transportation and community 
orientation, employment and childcare. 
Part of the JFS training taught the 
volunteers to take everything step-
by-step. After the family’s arrival, 
the housing team, led by Alice 
Mishkin, a volunteer from Ann Arbor 
Reconstructionist Congregation, 
managed to secure quality, affordable 
housing on a bus line. This can be one 
of the most challenging tasks, especially 
in a competitive rental market like Ann 
Arbor’s, Mishkin noted. 
After working through nearly all of 
the openings they found online, Mishkin 
and another volunteer called the 
properties to learn more. Because of the 
family’s lack of rental history, a member 
of the community volunteered to be a 
co-signer for the apartment, which was 
instrumental in securing the home. 
She discovered there was tough 
competition for apartments, and often 
landlords would ask for application 
fees of up to $100 per person. “It was 
honestly so frustrating and disappointing 
to see what families face when trying to 
find affordable housing,” Mishkin said.
Once housing was in place, people 
donated furniture for the apartment, 
including new mattresses, bedding and 
other homewares. Volunteers and the 
newcomer family carried these items up 
the stairs on move-in day. Seeing all four 
family members pushing furniture up 
the stairs showed a “very early burst of 

independence,” Somers said. 
The family will soon take over the 
rental payments and utilities completely 
after a phased approach over the past 
several months. 
Another component of the 
resettlement process was getting the 
children enrolled and integrated into 
schools that had already begun the 
school year. Midge Cone, Temple Beth 
Emeth congregational representative to 
JCOR, recalled how eager and willing 
the teenage children were to ride the bus 
to their prospective schools. 
Cone worked with the leaders and 
counselors of the schools to address 
everything from registering, navigating 
the school system, taking advantage 
of counseling, making sure they had 
gym shoes, knowing how to take the 
bus, participating in parent-teacher 
conferences, to making sure they were 
up-to-date with vaccinations. 
Personnel at the middle and high 
schools were all so helpful, Midge said, 
and a local business donated backpacks 
— nice ones: Adidas and Lululemon. 
Most of all, Cone said she was blown 
away by the children’s can-do attitude. 
Jeff Basch, a JCOR volunteer with 

the Ann Arbor Reconstructionist 
Congregation, acts as the family’s 
financial adviser. He said he was struck 
by the challenges facing refugee families 
resettling in the United States. 
“It has not been easy,” he said, listing 
many of the challenges the family faced 
and continues to face: figuring out 
logistics of how to get a bank account 
and apply for a credit card, setting up 
utilities and finding an affordable car to 
commute to work. 
“The training provided by JFS has 
been instrumental in my approach to 
avoid adopting the family and instead 
guiding the family to empower them to 
make their own informed decisions — 
good or bad — on the path to owning 
their American experience,” Basch said. 
“I admire those who leave everything 
to start over in the United States. I 
have a better understanding of the 
real-world challenges they face and 
the perseverance and ability to learn 
required to succeed.”
He added, “I feel proud of how JCOR 
has brought together the greater Jewish 
community for a greater purpose. 
Tikkun olam that repairs locally and 
globally.” 

OUR COMMUNITY

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