[mpatobin]

During the last federal election the refugee crisis was a campaign issue. I gave up social media for a while because the amount of hatred I was seeing towards the refugees was making me feel sick.

When I got back on facebook I saw that my small town was planning to start a sponsorship group. I went to see how I could help and we formed a committee to bring seven refugee families to our town. I was able to help out by setting up the website, social media and helping with online donations (the group was mostly an older crowd).

To date we've raised over $100k, resettled 5 families and positively changed the lives of everyone involved. All the men are working and half their wives have jobs too. Some of the children are going to school for the first time in their lives and they're learning English quickly. Its incredible to see them playing and laughing after everything they've been through.

I recently moved to another city but I feel so lucky to have been a part of something that had such an impact. And I miss the coffee one of the women used to make :-/