Announcement
If you’ve spotted a 2016 grey Honda Odyssey minivan driving around Baltimore lately, you may have come across IRC staff and clients at work.
In May of 2019, the IRC in Baltimore purchased its first minivan with generous support from the France-Merrick Foundation. The goal for owning an agency vehicle was to reduce the number of trips that had previously required two staff and vehicles, and to reduce wear and tear on the personal vehicles of IRC staff members.
IRC employment specialist Danielle Lew (right) drives four clients to a job interview in the grey minivan.
Photo: Photo: Danielle Lew/IRC
As part of the IRC’s resettlement work, staff spend many hours and miles in the car, transporting clients to critical appointments and connecting them with local employment opportunities. IRC staff greet refugees when they arrive at BWI airport and drive them to their new homes; transport clients to medical appointments at many clinics, hospitals, and providers; take clients to the Social Security Administration to apply for documentation; drive families to local public schools to enroll children in school; drive job seekers to interviews at local companies, and much more!
Before IRC owned a minivan, trips with more than four clients or large families generally required two staff members to drive their personal vehicles. Often it meant limiting the number of clients IRC could take to a job interview, or requiring repeat trips to employers due to limitations in staff vehicle capacity.
The grey van is now in use almost daily, and sometimes multiple times each day. During the first seven months, the van was driven over 140 times and transported 740 passengers! Trips averaged 29 miles with 5 passengers. The IRC would like to add a second minivan to our fleet as we project using the current vehicle to transport approximately 1,200 clients to critical resettlement services over a 12-month period.
The IRC in Baltimore is very grateful to the France-Merrick Foundation for getting our staff and clients moving with this capacity-building capital purchase. If you are interested in helping us build our fleet with a second minivan, please contact our development coordinator, Andrea Meyer at [email protected].
IRC Baltimore staff with our grey minivan.
Photo: Photo: Ryan Coster/IRC
If you want to get involved with the IRC and become a welcoming presence in the lives of newly arrived refugees, please consider attending one of our monthly information sessions to learn about our volunteer opportunities and donation guidelines.
