Late last August at the Annual Kansas Community Leadership Enterprise training, a group of residents from Finney County sat down to brainstorm ways that they could come together to support the needs of residents in Finney County. As the group began to discuss the needs of their community they decided that they wanted to look further more into what it would take for them to create a mentorship program to bring together recently arrived refugees in Garden City and community members. 


The group decided to continue their conversation after their meeting. Since then, the group has met several times. In doing so they have researched what it would take to recruit these volunteers and furthermore, what it would take to train them to work best with IRC clients. 


In addition to this, the group also formed a second committee, the Welcome Committee that brainstormed ways that they could support the IRC in Garden City. Since then this committee has assisted the IRC with the inception of a donation drop-off center for donated in-kind goods and with assisting IRC staff with picking clients up from the Airport. 


Soon the efforts of the group will pay off and the mentoring program in Garden City will begin. Refugees will be placed with members of their community beginning in mid-July. For more information about the mentoring refugees in Garden City, please contact Jessica Stephenson.