Frankland School Raises $2,840!

Thanks a million to the students and staff of Frankland Community School for raising $2,840 for the Riverdale Refugee Lifeline's campaign!

Teacher (and RRL member) James Bowen and the Grade 6 students raised $640 by providing babysitting services to Frankland parents at the school's annual Silent Auction on December 3rd.

Each Frankland class created an art canvas for the Silent Auction, like the one pictured here by Ms. Waithe's and Ms. Richards' Junior-Senior Kindergarten Class.  The 16 canvases were raffled off, raising a total of $2,200!

A Musical Gift of $2,379!

Liz, left, and Maria at the Eton House fundraiser

Riverdalians and musicians Liz West and Maria Saras-Voutsinas organized a great fundraising concert for Riverdale Refugee Lifeline on November 28^th at the Eton House on the Danforth.

The evening featured their band, the Nite Owlz, together with local bands Government Rock Picnic, Trainwreck, and special guest Murray Foster.

We were presented with an amazing donation of $2,379 from the evening!  We are so grateful for this gift from our community.  Thanks to all who helped make it happen and to everyone who turned out and helped raise the funds for the Syrian family we will soon be sponsoring!

Some of our members!

Back Row:  Karen, Doug, Andrew, Adam, Ron, James and Tracy  Front Row: Michelle, Catherine, Heather, Henna, Tara, Lindsay and Piali

We are some of the members of Riverdale Refugee Lifeline.  We're 24 in all, from 15 families.  We've been putting in a lot of volunteer hours to get everything ready for the Syrian family we are sponsoring.  We expect the family will arrive in Canada in early 2016.

Our Fundraising Journey for a Syrian Refugee Family

By Henna Agha

When we decided as a group to take on the task of resettling a refugee family here in Toronto, the first thing we had to do was set a fundraising goal.

With 24 individuals (which translates to 15 core members) in our group, we felt we could manage a larger fundraising amount. We looked at several resources to determine what that goal would be. For example, sponsoring a refugee family of 4 requires about $20,000 + start up costs of approx. $7000. 

Sponsorship costs vary according to the size of family being sponsored. Refugees are often given a loan for their medical exams and travel costs to Canada. That loan is capped for a family at $10,000. In determining our fundraising goal, we decided that this would be an onerous burden for the sponsored family starting a life in Canada, so we took that loan amount and added it to our fundraising goal.
 
That’s how we decided to sponsor a family of between 6-8 members, and set a fundraising goal of $60,000.

To date, we’ve raised more than $40,000 towards our goal of $60,000 for resettling a refugee family here in Toronto. We’re more than 2/3 of the way to our goal.
 
We’ve done this by dividing the fundraising responsibility among the core members of our group, so each core member is responsible for raising $4,000. 
Those members then reached out to their network of friends, family, neighbors, and community members.
 
Personally, in addition to the family members and friends that excitedly contributed right away, I have had friends donate to support our endeavor that I haven’t seen face to face in over 20 years. 

Virtual strangers, and friends of friends that I have never met were moved enough to donate under our names. 

Some motivated friends pulled together a fundraiser at the Danforth Social Club this Saturday with local bands, and are donating all the proceeds from the fundraiser to our group.  Such is the power of human goodness. The desire to be involved in something positive and meaningful is a tremendous motivating force.
 
We have partnered with Eastminster United Church, and all donors to our Refugee sponsorship group receive tax receipts. To be transparent, the money contributed online through our Canada Helps fundraising pages is subject to a small 3.5% fee for processing. Canada Helps had the lowest fees associated with fundraising through an online platform. Others charge up to 15% of the donation to process. (GoFundMe for example charges 7.9%+30 cents per donation to process transactions in USA and Canada).
 
On the other hand, donations made by cheque to Eastminster United Church – Refugee Sponsorship Fund have no processing fee attached.

These are the only costs associated with the donations. No funds are used for overhead, administration, staffing etc.
 
Any funds raised that exceed what we require in this initial family resettlement will be used to sponsor additional families in the future, or go towards other refugee resettlement efforts.
 
Once the family is here, our group is responsible for setting up the living arrangements for the family.
 
Temporary housing initially, followed by permanent housing after consultation with the family, and taking into account their requirements.  Perhaps they already have family here that they want to be close to, or they need to access certain services and need to be located close by those service centers for convenience.   

We provide the furniture, clothing, housewares, kitchen supplies, and help navigating the system. Basically everything the family requires to make a home, their home. We set up a bank account, and help the family budget for rent, food, and all other expenses associated with starting a life in Toronto.
 
We also help the family access services, apply for documentation, enroll the children in school, and find both employment training and jobs. Our group provides the financial and emotional safety net for the incoming family for the first year. After 12 months the refugee family is expected to be self-sufficient.
 
Can you help? Attend our fundraiser, or make a tax-deductible contribution today!
 
Or if you have already donated, share our blog with your extended circle of friends and family. Help us come together as a cohesive force for good, positive change!

Riverdale Refugee Lifeline - Our Commitment to Help

We've all watched over recent months as the conflict in Syria has worsened, prompting millions to flee. 

We've seen the desperate families in squalid refugee camps in the countries bordering Syria.  

We've seen the long lines of mothers, fathers and children walking out of the Middle East to an uncertain reception in Europe.  

And we've seen the tragic deaths of too many innocent children and others, in rickety boats and on desert sands.

It has become too terrible to ignore; we've decided to do what we can to help.

Who are We?

Riverdale Refugee Lifeline is a group of families, mostly from Toronto's Riverdale neighbourhood.  

Our goal is to help bring at least one of those vulnerable Syrian families to Canada as soon as possible and help them re-settle here permanently.Our group has taken on the responsibility of supporting a refugee family for their first 12 months in Canada.  

Our commitment to the family:

• Help them find and furnish a place to live
• Cover their airfare, rent, utilities, household and other expenses
• Ensure their daily needs are met--food, clothing, transportation
• Help them get health care, language instruction for the adults and schooling for the children
• Help them find employment training and jobs and become self-sufficient as quickly as possible
• Help them understand how to get around and function in Toronto and Canada, making sure they have the information and skills they'll need to make a successful transition to their new home.

We're working with Lifeline Syria, a humanitarian organization that recruits, trains and assists sponsor groups like ours to welcome and support the refugees who will come to Canada in the coming months and years.

We're not a religious organization (our group includes Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus and some who are not religious at all), but we have teamed up with Eastminster United Church on the Danforth to help us collect donations, to provide us with support and the benefit of their long experience in working with refugees.

How Much Will it Cost?

We're looking to sponsor a family of 6 to 8 people, which will likely include grandparents, parents and children.  

A family that size will need about $60,000 to cover start-up costs and ongoing expenses for a year.  That's roughly equivalent to the Social Assistance payments a similar Canadian family would receive from the government, plus an adjustment for Toronto's high cost of living. 

All the money our members raise will be used to directly fund the family's resettlement costs.  If the family becomes financially self-sufficient before the end of the 12-month sponsorship, any remaining funds will be used either by us to sponsor a second refugee family, or will go to assist other refugee families being sponsored by other groups.

Can You Help?

Please donate what you can today.  Anything you can give will have a direct impact on the lives of at least one family affected by the crisis in Syria.  Working together, we can save lives and lift innocent people from misery.  

Thank you for your support. 

Please share our link with your friends and families and please encourage them to help us reach our fundraising goal.

Please click on the links on the right hand side of the page to see updates of our group's work, and to get more information.