When I became the
director of IRC, I actually met with the
head of LDS Charities. And like any
self-respecting director, when he asked me, just
point-blank, "What do you need?" I said, "Well, we need money. We need $25,000." And without even a blink,
he just looked at me and said, "Well, what would
you spend that money on? Besides staff, what
would you spend it on?" And I said, "Well, furniture. And we need to buy supplies,
and we need to buy beds." And he said, "Hold it. We make beds. What if we gave you
$25,000 in beds?" I said, "That would be great." The fact that now we were giving
them a bed from LDS Charities meant that they have all
that money to pay for rent. So it actually paid for
about a month's more rent. Today, actually, we
received $100,000 in beds, which is like
$100,000 in housing support. We receive vouchers to DI so
that when refugees come in, we can give them the
voucher and they can go get the clothes that they need. We also receive some
of the commodities from the bishops' storehouse. And the other piece
that we receive is a partnership with
some of the leadership in helping strategize how
we can best serve refugees. I think the most
beneficial thing working with LDS Charities has been
that at the end of the day, if we realize that
refugees are better off because of this partnership,
then that's really what counts.