Banfield Pet Hospitals, founded in Portland in 1955, has become the largest Pet general veterinary practice in the world. Banfield approached IRCO this past summer with a desire to get more involved with the immigrant and refugee community in Portland. The Request: to be paired up with IRCO refugee families in need this Holiday season. Jennifer Eudy, an associate legal counsel with Banfield headed up the coordination and advocacy on the Banfield side. Soon, she had $1,000 for ten families committed from Banfield (that’s $10,000 total!). The Plan: find ten of IRCO’s most in-need refugee families and pair them up with ten “teams” on the Banfield side and create a dialogue. In a year where needs are going unmet more than ever and more and more families are struggling with the basics, it was hard to select only ten families from the IRCO clientele. Selection was finally made and each Banfield team met with their sponsored families to determine their needs.
Many of the family’s needs ended up being the same: help with paying utility bills, warm clothes for the winter, basic hygiene supplies, and warm blankets. Others were more specific: help in buying a sons special eye glasses, help in navigating the Oregon medical system, recommendations for jobs.
All of the Banfield teams met with their families and got to work shopping. Spending their personal time on weekends and after work, the teams diligently shopped and bargained for what each family needed, and made the $1,000 for each family stretch immensely far. Taking the time to wrap each gift, learn and write the names of the family members on the gifts and coordinate delivery, the teams were ready for the final drop off. Drop-offs happened between December 21st and 23rd and had to be done with a U-Haul truck in many cases for the large amount delivered to families.
The Pota family received a washer and dryer along with many other necessities and gifts. The washer and dryer will help the Burmese refugee family immensely as the mother had been spending large parts of her days hand-washing the families’ cloths and trying to dry them on the back porch of their apartment in 30 degree weather.
Inas Al Daffie, a widowed mother of two young children recently arrived from Iraq, was given everything on her wish list. When the Banfield team arrived to drop off the goods the children were playing in a corner of the unfurnished apartment with sticks. By the time the team left, the children were running around in brand new clothes playing SpongeBob Square Pants games and giggling uncontrollably. “Thank you” Inas said to one of the female team members in broken English “we would have nothing without this help. You are my sisters, thank you.”Ten refugee families were incredibly blessed by the generous donations of Banfield Pet Hospital this season. Equally beneficial was the dialogue created between the employees of Banfield and recently arrived refugees from all over the world. Each of the groups had a chance to learn about the others culture and share in a moment giving and receiving. As the gifts were being dropped off, refugee neighbors and relatives looked on with interest. An IRCO Case Manager who works with the Burmese population said “this is so wonderful for these ten families, but what do I tell my other clients? They do not even need new things; they just need warm coats, blankets and food. What should I tell them?” There are programs and agencies set up to help these newly arrived Portland community members, but like so many businesses these days are stretched very thin.
IRCO thanks Banfield with deep sincerity for all of their work and generous in-kind donations to refugee families in need this season, and looks forward to a continued relationship in the future. If you have any questions or want to help agencies working with Portland’s immigrant and refugee community, please consider donating to IRCO and the programs it runs.
To see more pictures from this wonderful project, please click here!
Tags: Banfield Pet Hospitals | Holiday 2010 | news | Refugee Sponsorship
Banfield Gives Generously to IRCO Refugee Families