Year-End Outreaches Share Joy with Nile Sisters Constituents

It has been quite a special holiday season, thanks to the Nile Sisters donors, volunteers, and partners who have touched the lives of our constituents in immeasurable ways! The resettlement process for refugees is never easy. Many refugee families who have been here for only a year or less do not have the essential goods and services they need to live a comfortable life let alone the extras for holiday celebrations. Since 2004, Nile Sisters has helped refugee and immigrant families enjoy the holiday season in their new home by organizing two end-of-the-year outreaches: Adopt-a-Basket and Adopt-a-Family.

Adopt-a-Basket
On December 18, Nile Sisters distributed 93 gift baskets (a new record) to constituent families. Students of Patrick Henry High School, Hoover High School, National University, SDSU, and USD, volunteers from Kaiser Permanente, La Jolla Presbyterian Church members, and individuals donated hundreds of household items, blankets, clothing, baby supplies, kitchenware, hygiene products, and school supplies to the twelfth annual Adopt-a-Basket campaign for assembly into the family-size gift baskets.

Adopt-a-Family
Members of La Jolla Presbyterian Church sponsored a total of 13 refugee / immigrant families in the Nile Sisters Adopt-a-Family outreach this year. Sponsors cover the purchase of a number of specific items on families’ wish lists, and they also spend quality time with recipient refugee / immigrant families. Adopt-a-Family fosters intercultural understanding, raises awareness of the challenges to refugee resettlement, facilitates acculturation, initiates new relationships, and opens helpful new resources to adopted families in times of need.