Stories

Written by Amy Andrews

A huge hurdle for families embarking on their new lives in Charlotte is simply not knowing how to navigate the ins and outs of daily life. Buying groceries, enrolling children in school or figuring out how to read bills are all monumental tasks. Refugee Support Services was born out of the need to directly help families facing these and other challenges, providing them with support and connection to promote self-sufficiency and ultimately enrich the Charlotte community.

Did you know that supporting a nonprofit can be as easy as eating at a restaurant? 

Numbers are powerful.

27: That's the number of people who traveled together to Uganda ten years ago to serve communities displaced by war. 

658: That's the number of bricks the group made in one day for one of their construction projects. It was a record for the most bricks made in one day. It was also a number that stuck with those 27 people as they returned to the U.S., where they pledged to continue serving communities in need. 

Just over a month ago, the city of Charlotte united for a celebration of the arts called Charlotte SHOUT!– a festival showcasing the power art has to bring people together. Art provides a method of communication through which people of all cultures and backgrounds can express themselves. At OurBridge for Kids, they take this phenomenon and use it to nurture the children of the refugee and immigrant community in our city.

Education doesn’t stop after grade school or college.

Both local nonprofit, Classroom Central, and Charlotte based business, Skillpop, share a particular passion for lifelong learning. This mutual passion for education gave way to a collaboration for GOOD during this past #GivingTuesdayCLT.

“I blame Walt Disney.  It’s all his fault,” Steve Parker, the founder of FOCHUS says when asked how it all began.

Tuesdays are kind of a big deal for Communities In Schools of Charlotte-Mecklenburg. As a #GivingTuesdayCLT participant since year one, CIS has added valuable volunteers to its Success Coach and Social Capital Bridging programs, among others. The organization has also gained community awareness by using the #GivingTuesdayCLT toolkit that SHARE Charlotte offers to all participating nonprofits.

105 words rest beneath the Statue of Liberty.

They were written 136 years ago.

Time has taken its toll on the brass inscription.

The words, once crisp, have faded.

And maybe, their meaning has too.

Every two seconds, someone around the world is displaced from their home. Driven away from everything they know by violence, war, or relentless prosecution.

Did you know there are an estimated 1,076,837 people who call Mecklenburg County “home”?  With native Charlotteans being referred to as “Unicorns” because they are so hard to find, it's no surprise that the majority of people who live in our vibrant city migrated here from elsewhere. Many of those people being immigrants and refugees who are resettling here for a new life and bringing their own culture and traditions to our ever-growing city.