What is Journey’s End?

Journey’s End Refugee Services, Inc. is a Christian community-based refugee resettlement organization. Their mission is to welcome refugees without regard to ethnic origin or creed and to assist them to become healthy, independent, contributing members of the WNY community. Journey’s End offers an array of services on top of assistance with refugee resettlement including education services, employment services, immigration legal services, and interpreting services.

How did we get involved?

Immigration and refugees are such important topics in the US, but one of our ComputerPeople Staffing employees, Beth Courtney,  was really inspired to help incoming refugees from her son.

Beth’s son and two friends spent the summer of their junior year at Notre Dame researching the refugee crisis in Europe.  They spent two months visiting refugee camps and hearing the heartbreaking stories of brave families from war torn countries who were fleeing for their lives.  He showed Beth hundreds of pictures of these families and shared their stories which inspired her to do something to help.

Beth found out about Journey’s End and suggested our company could help by volunteering with their Home Again Program.  This program has groups of volunteers clean, furnish and set up an apartment or home for incoming refugee families. Journey’s End describes it this way, “Barren apartments are transformed into cozy homes for newly arrived refugee families. After long and arduous journeys to the United States, a warm and cozy apartment brings a sense of security to families that have lost and left so much.”

About Friday.

The CP Staffing divisions of ComputerPeople, FinancialPeople, and MedicalPeople spent two months working together to collect furniture, bedding, lamps, dishes, pots, pans, and everything else needed to furnish a home. On Friday, the staff from our Buffalo office went to work and scrubbed the house down, moved in, set up all of the furniture and household items, and decorated the house to make it feel like a home.  This week, a refugee family from the Congo with four boys arrived and moved into the house for their new start in Buffalo. We are so grateful to have had the opportunity to work with Journey’s End and give this family a brand new start!

You can view video highlights from Friday’s home upgrade on the YouTube Video by FinancialPeople’s own Faith Drew

Written by Kaitlyn Gahagen