The Austin Refugee Roundtable would like to thank all of those who reached out to the various agencies with offers of support for the expected arrival of Afghan families due to the current evacuation.
Austin agencies have been working with Afghan refugees and SIV holders for a couple of years. Resettling and assisting refugees is not new nor a challenge for members of the roundtable. The big difference at this time is the short notice resettlement agencies will get, and the speed a larger number of clients will arrive in.
All the refugee service agencies in Austin expect their scope of work to broaden and expand and will be relying to a large extent on community support.
As the only resettlement agency in Austin at this time, Refugee Services of Texas has been inundated with inquiries and offers of assistance. As of this week, RST which has offices throughout Texas has already resettled 574 Afghans. In Austin alone, RST will resettle 185 Afghans by the end of September. You can learn how to help RST here.
If you wish to help, any refugee roundtable agencies could benefit from direct donations, HEB and Visa gift cards and volunteers. In kind donations are harder to process at this time, with Covid and the limited storage space most agencies have.