A Bridge of Hope

In early 2021, I found myself holding two babies whose mother had fled Central America with her young children, enduring horrific violence along the way. As I held her babies and heard pieces of her story, something shifted in me.

It is easy to talk about immigration in categories. It is much harder to do that when you are rocking someone’s baby to sleep.

Later that year, after the fall of Kabul, our family sat on the floor of a hotel room with a newly arrived Afghan family who had barely escaped Afghanistan. They had escaped with a few bags and an uncertain future.

What began with those encounters grew into something much larger than one family. Welcome Families, English teachers, advocates, attorneys, churches, neighbors, and those fostering unaccompanied minors came alongside immigrants, asylum seekers, and refugees in our community. There were English classes, shared meals, appointments, paperwork, celebrations, prayers, laughter, tears, and friendships. Again and again, we learned that proximity changes things.

Then the needs changed. Husbands and fathers in families we knew were detained, leaving wives and children to navigate life without them. Families suddenly faced enormous legal bills while also losing income and struggling with rent, groceries, and everyday expenses. The community that had grown through years of friendship responded, with people giving what they could and walking alongside families through the crisis.

But the needs were becoming too great to keep passing the hat whenever someone was in crisis. Our neighbors needed something that could endure.

Fredericksburg Immigration Justice Fund was born from that need.