Planning Meeting to Support Syrian Refugees:

Follow-up on Member Feedback on OrH’s Role

Thursday, February 18^th 7:00 – 9:00

Following our request for members to let us know if OrH should become involved in supporting Syrian refugees coming to Ottawa, and if so, what kind of support would be most appropriate for us, we received a significant number of responses.

A core group of members have expressed an interest in OrH becoming involved in supporting Syrian refugees, as an expression of our Jewish values and in recognition of our own history as a people.  Many indicated an interest in volunteering their time, offering leadership, or contributing financially to our efforts. 

The general consensus was that this is something that we should be doing, either through collaboration with other congregations or by sponsoring an individual or family on our own.  All of the responses were made in isolation from each other and did not benefit from a collective discussion or from a full exploration of the options which were presented.

In order to provide a forum for a fuller community-wide discussion of the most appropriate options for OrH’s involvement in support of Syrian refugees we will be holding an information session for our members (and those non-members interested in joining our effort) on Thursday, February 18^th from 7:00 - 9:00 pm in Room 5, on the lower level of the Unitarian Congregation.

Ms. Andrea Gardner from the Jewish Family Services has graciously offered to provide us with very detailed information about the options available to us so that we can begin the process of selecting the most appropriate option for OrH and to begin organizing ourselves to provide meaningful and effective support.

Thank you very much to those members who provided us with feedback so that we can move forward with an initiative which permits us all to express some core Jewish values in a very tangible way.

We look forward to seeing you on February 18^th.