2003
UTO grant given to
Knoxville Bridge Refugee project
From left, Larissa Chuprina and Mary Lieberman of Bridge Refugee Services in Knoxville receive a plaque from Katie Piper, Episcopal Church Women and UTO coordinator, and Bishop Charles vonRosenberg. The plaque reads: “This United Thank Offering Grant was made possible by Blue Box offerings and prayers given as tangible means of thanking God for blessings received. The United Thank Offering Committee asks God’s blessing on this ministry – and on all who serve and are served through its mission.”
By Sharon Rasmussen,
communication director
Imagine living in such fear that you feel leaving your home country is preferable to staying – leaving not just your hometown, but your home country. The move may require you to abandon all you own, and it likely will require you and your family to learn a new language and adjust to an alien culture.
Thousands of people make the decision each year to make their home in a new country. The United States accepts only a limited number of refugees and asylees – those seeking asylum – and requires them to prove fear of persecution in their home countries. Those who are accepted may receive transitional assistance.
Bridge Refugee and Spon-sorship Services is a nonprofit ecumenical organization providing such aid in the Knox-ville, Chattanooga and the Tri-Cities areas. It resettles refugees through Church World Service and Episcopal Migration Ministries. Bridge has helped resettle hundreds of immigrants from more than a dozen countries since its founding in 1982.
United Thank Offering is a program of the national Episcopal Church founded by church women in 1889. Episcopal Church Women promote, receive and distribute the offerings in the form of grants on behalf of the church. Bridge Refugee’s “Youth at Risk” project received a grant this year.
More than a thousand children in Knox schools come from homes where English is not the primary language. “Youth at Risk” reaches out to these parents and children.
Larissa Chuprina, an immigrant from Ukraine who has settled in East Tennessee, coordinates “Youth at Risk.”
The UTO grant funded Chuprina’s work to develop an orientation program to Knox County public schools that includes policies she and others translated into immigrants’ native languages. Parents are informed of dress codes, attendance and truancy policies and curriculum guidelines. Bridge also supplies translators for parent-teacher conferences and emergency interventions.
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