El Refugio: "a beacon of hope in a dark world.”

By Florencia Cornu

"You are a beacon of hope in a dark world”. Those words were written on the walls of one of the visitor’s rooms at the Stewart Detention Center. That is exactly what El Refugio is: the only place in Lumpkin for families and recently released immigrants to stay a night, have a meal, and receive the support they need so much.

The last day of our stay on Lumpkin, we had the opportunity to visit El Refugio and were received by Zach Denton, who volunteered his vacation month to welcome families and help to establish a post-release program.

When we arrived, Zach was saying goodbye to a very young man who was released the night before. For privacy reasons, we are not revealing his name or nationality. We will call him “the young man”. But he did have a name; he did have a homeland who has expelled him; he did have a face and a beautiful smile; he did have a story, a family, friends: people he loves, and that love him back.

During the night, this young man’s aunt drove 13 hours to get to Lumpkin, and now they were driving back, fueled with the joy of the freedom. They hugged and blessed us too, and we felt we were privileged witnesses of the power of human love transformed into action.

On a typical day, Zach would go to the Stewart Detention Center in the evening, when the detainees are released. When they do not have plans or places to go, El Refugio offers them a bed to stay the night, meals, a phone, or an internet connection to attempt to contact family or friends. If El Refugio were not there, they would have been bused to Columbus and dropped on the bus station, alone, without money, without food, in the majority of cases without even speaking English.

That is not the case today: El Refugio was there for this young man to spend his first night of freedom. This morning, before they left, Zach gave them a $ 25 gas card, a card to use to buy a couple of meals, coffee, and snacks the trip. Zach explained to us that all these items come from the donations obtained through drives organized by different organizations.

The house in which El Refugio is now located was donated by Samantha Bee and was ready only six months ago. The place is beautiful, warm, full of light, and has a long table around which one can imagine the families and the recently released, having the first meal together; a place in which one will be treated as a human being and not as an Alien Number.

Along with the skills we acquired during our week working for SIFI, we treasure the experience of getting to know El Refugio and the dedicated people who work there to help the others.

If you want to do something to help them to help, you can donate using their website or sending directly to their address:

www.elrefugiostewart.org

210 Main St (791,12 km) 31815 Lumpkin

(229) 234-9022