Christmas project goes year-round for church group
Friday, November 29th, 2019
As the holidays approached last year, Vicki Suttle and Marsha Gentry went to a pastor at their church, seeking a way to better invest themselves in the lives of the people in their community. “We wanted to connect with people on more than a one-time thing,” Vicki said. The pastor steered them to Bridge Refugee […]
Read More »Former Bosnian refugee ‘pays it forward’
Friday, November 29th, 2019
Last Christmas, Olivera Dessieux delivered nearly 300 backpacks stuffed with school supplies to children served by Bridge Refugee Services and a Knoxville elementary school. This holiday season, the former Bridge client organized another community donation drive aimed at giving children entering the foster-care system a new duffel bag to carry hygiene products and other items so they won’t […]
Read More »Couple reunites after six years
Tuesday, November 5th, 2019
When Muhyidin came to Chattanooga in 2016, he made a decision. If his wife couldn’t join him within five years, he would go back home. He had left his country, a newlywed, in 2013 as one of hundreds of thousands fleeing ongoing conflict and ethnic struggle in his home city of Darfur. He and […]
Read More »‘My children got a better life’
Tuesday, November 5th, 2019
It’s been almost 30 years since Manjay fled civil conflict in Liberia with her four children, ages three to nine, and walked to the Ivory Coast. In 2005, the family walked off the airplane into a new life in Knoxville. “I didn’t know anybody,” she says. She didn’t speak English. Her children had never been […]
Read More »New sewing program brings clients together to learn enterprise skills
Sunday, October 6th, 2019
Claudine Tuyisenge didn’t know how to handle a needle, let alone a sewing machine when she participated last month in a sewing workshop offered through Bridge Refugee Services’ Knoxville office. “Now I can make my own skirt,” says Claudine, a refugee from the Democratic Republic of the Congo who resettled in Knoxville with Bridge’s help. […]
Read More »Interpreter follows in father’s footsteps
Sunday, October 6th, 2019
When Sarah Whayeb greets Arabic-speaking refugees who arrive in East Tennessee, she welcomes them in her native language. But Sarah, an interpreter with Bridge Refugee Services, understands first-hand the culture shock, exhaustion and uncertainty they’re experiencing, as well. With Bridge’s help, she resettled in Chattanooga 11 years ago after fleeing war-torn Iraq with her mother, […]
Read More »Couple founds Chattanooga coffee business with refugees in mind
Tuesday, September 3rd, 2019
Cherita Rice understood the plight of refugees at an age most aren’t aware they exist. She’s a native of the unique community enclave of Clarkston, Ga., where thousands of refugees settled and built new lives. “All my friends were refugees,” she says, hailing from Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, all over the world. The experience led her […]
Read More »Bridge client, volunteer land slot in Knoxville film fest
Tuesday, September 3rd, 2019
Hemedi had to Google Knoxville, Tennessee, when he learned as a Congolese refugee living in Burundi that he would be resettled here. This month, a movie he helped produce and film will be featured in the Knoxville Film Festival. It will screen as part of a block of short films featured 2-4 p.m. Sunday, Sept. […]
Read More »Syrian twins win spots in national welcome program
Friday, May 31st, 2019
It is no exaggeration to say Yara and Yazan escaped war-torn Syria by the skin of their teeth. The day they left Syria with their parents and two older siblings, their home was bombed. Ten days later it was completely destroyed by fire. The refugee family was resettled in Chattanooga, where they have been rebuilding […]
Read More »Churches join to welcome refugees
Friday, May 31st, 2019
They may be different church denominations, but when you ask Jack and Nathan what moved them to come to the aid of refugees, they both quote the same verse: “I was a stranger, and you welcomed me.” It’s this common belief that has brought Jack’s church, St. Joseph Catholic, and Nathan’s church, St. Francis Episcopal, […]
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