By Kate Hill

Staff Writer

Cazenovia Welcomes Refugees (CWR) is a community-based initiative dedicated to working with newly resettled refugees as they integrate into American life. The organization also engages with Cazenovia residents to foster a welcoming environment for refugees to live, work and attend school.

On Saturday, Oct. 26, CWR presented an “Extending the Table” community building dinner at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Cazenovia to raise funds and awareness for refugee resettlement.

This year’s menu — prepared by Chef Ngoc Huynh, a Vietnamese refugee who lives in Syracuse with her husband and son — featured taro egg rolls; fresh papaya and spaghetti squash salad; mung bean noodles with tofu and vegetables; lemongrass coconut chicken curry with French bread; and a Siamese banana dessert.

Half of the proceeds from the fundraiser will be used to support CWR’s efforts to resettle a refugee family currently living in Syracuse to Cazenovia.

The remainder of the proceeds will be designated for scholarship assistance or small grants to support refugee participation in the community.

CWR’s annual “Extending the Table” fundraiser celebrates global friendship and local hospitality.

According to Cindy Sutton, who co-facilitates CWR with Caroline Cargo, the goal of the dinner is to bring together the people who support the resettlement of refugees in Cazenovia, and to celebrate the richness that different cultures bring to the community.

“With the policy shift in recent years regarding the number of refugees allowed into the country, this dinner is an important way to continue to build relationships and to dissipate the fears such policies inspire,” said Rev. Jeanne Hansknecht, rector of St. Peter’s and member of the CWR Steering Committee. “Now, more than ever, we need to stand with our new American neighbors in friendship, because that’s what being a welcoming community means.”

The first dinner, held in 2017, was prepared by five chefs, — refugees from Burma, Pakistan, Egypt, Vietnam and Syria — who served their specialties at different stations in St. Peter’s social hall.

“The food was delicious and the variety of tastes was amazing,” Sutton said.

The second annual event featured a Middle Eastern menu prepared by Chef Nujoud Makhlouf, a refugee from Palestine.

CWR grew out of a Common Grounds grant intended to support an initiative to improve the Cazenovia community.

Officially established in fall 2017, the CWR Steering Committee represents a coalition of local groups united by the belief that refugees contribute to economic growth and bring new perspectives and cultural richness to the community and to the nation as a whole.

The coalition also shares the belief that small rural communities, like Cazenovia, can have a big impact on global issues.

CWR is supported by multiple sectors of the community, including the Cazenovia Central School District, Cazenovia College, Cazenovia Public Library, local faith communities, nonprofit groups, local government, businesses and private citizens.

“The refugee situation world-wide is horrendous,” Sutton said. “Thousands of refugees are crowded into refugee camps for many years; some of the young people have spent their entire lives in a refugee camp with no schooling, living in an inadequate tent. They were forced to leave their homes and their countries because of war, famine or persecution, and now are not welcome in many other countries. This is not right. It is not humane.”

CWR supports new American families in the community by helping them to identify housing options and by facilitating relationships with employers, schools, health care providers and others.

CWR also organizes educational events in the community, which create greater awareness of the global refugee crisis and the challenges faced by refugees as they become integrated into American communities.

The organization is supported by and works in partnership with InterFaith Works of Syracuse and its Center for New Americans — an agency that provides resettlement and post-resettlement services to refugee families in the Syracuse area.

In August 2018, CWR celebrated the arrival of its first resettled refugee family — a Kurdish family from northern Iraq — in Cazenovia.

“They have settled comfortably into the community,” Sutton said. “The three children love school, the dad is a full-time student at OCC and is a full-time employee in Caz, and the mom volunteers at The Key, goes to the Caz library to perfect her English (she speaks four languages), and is beginning her GED preparation.”

For more information on CWR, contact [email protected]. To learn more about IFW, visit interfaithworkscny.org.