To Canada, With Love

Story appeared in the 2016 issue of QMS Connections Magazine.

BY LEANNE SCHULTZ, OPERATIONS & HR MANAGER
STORY: KATHRYN HOLOPAINEN, QMS FACULTY

At Queen Margaret’s School, many of our staff and faculty lead by example, demonstrating to our students on a regular basis what it means to be generous and of service to others. Like our Founders, they do it without fanfare or acknowledgement.

This past year, international news headlines were dominated by the Syrian Refugee Crisis. The School hosted fundraising events to support Red Cross efforts, but for one of our faculty members, it was a call to make a bigger impact.

Like many other Canadians last September, I was shocked and saddened by the image of a small boy, lying dead on a beach in Turkey. Quickly learning more about the Syrian refugee situation, I realized that I had traveled the path of many of them into Europe just a month before, during my summer vacation. I had seen refugees, the first trickle of what would soon became a flood, but in my cocoon of privilege, I had been so oblivious to what was going on.

That very night, I started researching sponsoring a Syrian family. I went to local meetings and started speaking to friends, and I met a Syrian-Canadian woman who gave me information about family members who had fled Syria to surrounding countries. We chose a couple with three young children who were living in Turkey. Then we found out that the wife’s mother and younger sister were also living with them, which made it a family of seven. Friends of friends were asked and we eventually found enough people who were willing to make the commitment to be part of a “Group of Five” to privately sponsor this family, fully funding their first year in Canada. We filed the application, almost two inches thick, in mid-December.

I think that the experience of sponsorship, with all its ups and downs, has been both challenging and rewarding. When we started out, many of us in the group didn’t know each other well; now we feel like a team. Our diverse viewpoints have led to thoughtful discussions that have contributed to solid decision making. The generosity of people in our community has been amazing and wonderful. And the feeling of doing something concrete about a terrible situation in another part of the world is deeply satisfying. We can’t help everyone, but we can do this, here, now.

If you’d like updates on our Syrian family, visit: www.cowichansyriasponsorshipgroup.weebly.com