A new welcome center for refugees has opened in West Springfield. The Welcoming Alliance for Refugee Ministry (WARM) welcoming center provides housing, English classes, and health care for new arrivals.
The WARM organization started in Worcester a decade ago and as support grew for refugees coming to the area, the need to open a second location became apparent.
Tricia Sayre, the western Massachusetts program manager, said her group has been operating out of vacant church spaces for four and a half years, but recently got the funding from church donations to open a facility where they could assist refugees from Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq. She said they’re serving almost 100 families now.
“There's just been a lot of heartache and challenges with helping people the way they need to be helped,” Sayre said. “We felt like this is the time to open the welcome center because so much is at stake right now.”
Sayre said the Trump administration seeking to end the refugee resettlement program and clawing back funds from national and local resettlement agencies are not necessarily holding them back.
“We actually have increased some of our funding because people within some of the churches who found out what we were doing said because of what is happening politically within the U.S., we want to actually really put our money where our mouth is and support this work,” Sayre said.
Sayre said the center is funded by local and state grants in addition to church donations. She said it will be harder to apply for those grants due to the competition and says they will be holding fundraisers next month.
Sayre also said they are partnering with Jewish Family Service to help the refugees they work with to know their rights and "feel more confident."
