For just about a decade, Beth El Temple Center has partnered with the Refugee Immigration Assistance Center (RIAC), offering general support to refugees settling into the Boston area, as well as organizing backpack and clothes drives, knitting welcome blankets, and collecting houseware.
In March 2024, members of the congregation commuted to a hotel in Mansfield, where they shared food and conversation with a group of refugees.
“This January, it became apparent that the plight of those that RIAC serves was dire and that RIAC itself was in dire straits,” said Arlyn Roffman, chair of the Refugee Response Team at Beth El Temple Center. “It was clear to us it was time to jump into action.”
On April 27, the Beth El Temple Refugee Response Team, in collaboration with First Church in Belmont Unitarian Universalist, will host a fundraiser for RIAC, a Boston-based nonprofit that serves refugee and immigrant families from Congo, Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, and other nations. All proceeds will help RIAC continue to provide food, rental assistance, and other services to the people arriving at the organization’s door.
The biggest need that the fundraiser will indirectly help to support, said Roffman, is rental assistance.
“The rents are just so awful in Massachusetts,” she said. “But there’s a lot of other vulnerabilities, such as with [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program] benefits likely to go, there’s food insecurity.”
The event, which will take place in Zonis Audiotorium at the temple from 4 to 6 p.m., will include an update on refugee relief and ways to help, multicultural refreshments, live music by a Ukrainian pianist, a silent auction, and an exhibit of welcome blankets— the very project that brought the two faith groups together.
“We’re hosting it for the greater Belmont community, not just the Temple and the two faith communities,” Roffman said. “We’re trying to spread the word broadly.”
It is not her intention for the event to be political, she added.
“But given the political climate, the vulnerabilities are paramount,” Roffman said. “We really feel that if we can make a difference in the lives of even a few, it’s something we can do. I personally feel, we watch the news and we feel so helpless. As chair of this [committee], here’s a small way I can make a difference in this terrible, terrible time.”
To register for the event or to make a donation, go to betheltemplecenter.org/refugee-support
