World Grace Project Newsletter | 614 Randolph Street, Waterloo, Iowa 50702
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Iowa Bureau of Refugee Services

By Karen Everling – Executive Director World Grace Project

We have officially contracted with the State of Iowa Bureau of Refugee Services to provide services to incoming refugees, immigrants, and asylum seekers. We are thrilled to be backed by an incredible team offering financial support and years of experience helping incoming refugees and newcomers who make Iowa their new home.

A lot has changed with immigration, and as humanitarian parole has been offered to Ukraine, Afghans, and now Haitians, it has changed how support has traditionally been given to refugees. While traditional refugee resettlement will continue, Humanitarian Parole does not control traffic flow across the country and creates what the Bureau calls “hot spots” of resettlement. Waterloo has become a “hot spot” for Haitian refugees, making our partnership critical to resettling that community. We are excited about the opportunity to grow our staff and programming!

Refugee & Immigrant Job Fair

On October 5th, we held the first job fair exclusively for job seekers from our newcomer community in partnership with IowaWorks and the Iowa Bureau of Refugee Services. We had 70 job seekers and 10 employers attend. We are so thankful for the connections and educational opportunities like this one for our newcomers. Job seekers were able to understand more about other organizations and meet face-to-face.

B2Wins Benefit World Grace Project

By Karen Everling – Executive Director World Grace Project

In August, the Brazilian Twins hosted a concert at the Oster Regent Theatre. They generously donated a portion of the proceeds from each ticket to the World Grace Project. The Twins’ story of hardship in Brazil to success in America mirrors the stories of our clients. We are thankful for their donation to the newcomer community of Waterloo!

IMOM Dental Clinic

By Karen Everling – Executive Director World Grace Project

October 13th and 14th, we took community members to the Iowa Missions of Mercy Dental Clinic held at the Waterloo Convention Center. There are no words to express our joy and gratitude, so we decided to share direct quotes from our community about how they benefited. It was worth a long, cold wait in line!

Welcome New Staff!

We would like to welcome Harisa to the team. Harisa serves as our resource specialist, connecting newcomers to resources around Black Hawk County and organizing transportation, helping with doctor appointments, classes, and office coordination.

Supportive Housing

by Karen Everling – Executive Director World Grace Project

Due to the number of families needing to find apartments and other issues with housing, we have created a supportive housing program. Our housing coordinator visits clients in their home assisting them to care for their rental, obtaining furniture, learning financial literacy, saving money, finding transportation, etc. These intensive client sessions are helping newcomers get established through individual goal setting. In addition, we can assist with communications and misunderstandings that commonly come with cultural differences. Special thanks to Bond and Molly Shymansky at Rentals of Iowa for making this space possible!

Waukee School Gardens

We delivered gardens to Waukee Schools! The gardens are part of our workforce learning projects with introductions to wood construction and CNC, but the best part is we can partner in learning with other schools wanting to explore hydroponics. The systems we create allow us to share our work and advocate for the immigrant community’s strong ties to the agriculture system.

Neighbors to Newcomers Housewarming Crews

Would you like to help with housewarming for newcomers? Here are our needs!

• Store Coordinator – we need someone to organize incoming donated items and get them ready to return to homes in the community.
• Furniture Driver – Do you have a truck or small trailer and can help move items once per week? We NEED you!
• Housewares Driver – Can you deliver housewarming items to clients once per week? Items would fit in the trunk or back seat of a car. We NEED you!
• Transportation – can you drive a family to the store, doctor, or school? Background checks are required.

World Grace Project is a project of Little Iron Mom 501c3
614 Randolph Street
Waterloo, Iowa 50702

Purchase for a Cause

Head over to our store at worldgraceproject.myspreadshop.com to order your own t-shirt, and a portion of the proceeds will come back to our organization to support us!

Join Us

If you want to help other nations living in Waterloo, please join us. We are looking for fast-paced, dedicated volunteers who are willing to jump “all in” to help out.

Go to worldgraceproject.org/volunteer to join us today.