It’s that time of the year – all the Welcoming Cities and Counties in the United States celebrate Welcoming Week from September 16 – 25.

Photo courtesy of Welcoming America

Welcoming Week gives us an opportunity to celebrate the contributions that immigrants, refugees, new Americans and foreign-born residents are making each and every day to our community. It gives us a chance to celebrate our wonderfully diverse community, to raise awareness of the challenges that foreign-born residents face, and to cultivate greater compassion and understanding for those who need our support.

Join us at one of the Gainesville Welcoming Week events:

Interfaith Donation Drive for Refugees in Florida

September 23 – 25

Several agencies around Florida work tirelessly to support refugees who are trying to make a new life in Florida. Besides the challenge of assimilating to a new language, a new culture and new customs, refugees who come to Florida are in need of basic items that cannot be purchased with food stamps. Welcoming Gainesville is organizing a donation drive that will bring together different faith communities around Gainesville who will each be collecting donations from their members. We will pool all the donations on September 25 and bring them to Catholic Charities in Jacksonville, one of the main refugee resettlement agencies in Florida.

If you would like your faith community to participate, please send us an email to welcominggainesville@gmail.com and we’ll send you more details. We would love to have your group on board!

Traveling Exhibit “People on the Move”  

September 14 – October 10

This exhibit will be shown at different venues around Gainesville (times and places TBA) and will give insight into worldwide migration. We are currently witnessing an unprecedented wave of migration across the globe – come learn why people choose to leave their home and make a new life elsewhere or why some people are forced to flee their home and face the challenge of finding refuge.

Do you want to be one of the facilitators of the exhibit? We are looking for people who would donate an hour or two to show visitors around the exhibition and explain the different sections to them. If you are interested in being a facilitator please contact us at welcominggainesville@gmail.com

More events are to come, so check back regularly!