For more than 40 years, LSSNCA’s Good Neighbor Partners and Champions (GNP/C) have welcomed resettled families in Maryland and Virginia. Good Neighbors of Capitol Hill (GNCH) is one such group that has worked with LSSNCA since 2016.
In 2022, GNCH achieved a significant milestone by furnishing their 100th apartment as part of GNP/C program. The recipients of this apartment were a family of four from Afghanistan, now residing in Riverdale. Since then, GNCH has continued its mission, welcoming several dozen more families across the D.C. metro area.
As part of LSSNCA’s GNP/C program, their mission primarily involves preparing apartments and providing additional support including providing furniture, linens, kitchen utensils and appliances, groceries and more. However, volunteers, like GNCH, can also provide English language tutoring, arrange medical appointments, facilitate transportation, help with job preparation, and assist with other critical needs.
We had the opportunity to sit down with Dale and Kathryn, two of the founders of Good Neighbors of Capitol Hill (GNCH), and reflect on their journey in honor of Good Neighbor Day.
In 2015, while living in Germany, Kathryn and Dale were inspired by the churches’ efforts to assist refugees – and they wanted to do the same. A year later, they formed a coalition of 30 interested friends from local congregations and reached out to LSSNCA. They turned to LSSNCA to help organize and streamline their support by signing up for the first level of GNP/C and spent about six to eight months preparing. They eagerly awaited their first family match.
That match came in 2017. Dale recalls the family, whom the group is still in touch with, was “relatively well-off with a new baby, high education levels, and high expectations, which posed challenges for us.” The group identified an apartment; however, it needed significant renovations. “This marked our first home-building project, where we extensively renovated the apartment before it was ready,” said Kathryn. Doing their best to make apartments move-in ready, the group turns to Dale for his “kick for design,” to always make the new apartments a “home for [those] who move into it,” according to Kathryn. Their hard work pays off. “One family … walked into the apartment and sighed, ‘this is my dream home.’”
The group’s work is more than just what they do alongside LSSNCA. Many times, the furniture or other goods they use to furnish homes are donated due to loss of family members or loved ones moving into a retirement home. Dale explains they work “very closely with those who donate: our work does not just involve depositing furniture from the warehouse to apartment. There is a lot of moving parts. … We also must console the [donors amongst these] changes … as we go to collect items.”
There is a silver lining though – the sense of community. Kathryn notes that, “creating an environment that allows you to tap into your skills and resources to create change in people’s lives is just rewarding. We get a lot of helping hands from bystanders. We had a person who was selling furniture on the street, and we told her that we had been furnishing homes and she wanted to give the furniture for free. There are so many kind strangers out there willing to help.” Dale adds, “[p]art of our mission is repurposing things. We have a lot of handy people that can put back together things that are almost unusable. It feels very rewarding. I look at my fellow good neighbors and I see how much pleasure and sense of satisfaction it gives them. It’s a hard job but we always go with a smile on our face. It just makes you feel good, and you really see the impact.”
GNCH only continues to grow, according to Dale. “We have created a strong friendship with our volunteers. The people that you meet and befriend are so diverse in so many things. We get good support from our community when we are challenged, and we laugh about [it]. I remember a time when we were going to furnish an apartment in one of those high-rise buildings and suddenly, the elevator stopped working. We had to strategize on how to take the furniture up 15 [flights of] stairs.”
They also remain close with many of the families. Kathryn notes that what they “love about [their] work is the people [they] meet.” “We are so blessed,” she continues. “There is a family that arrived here with just half of the family because some were held back by the Taliban. The mother didn’t speak English, but her daughter spoke English, and was basically a life saver for many of the Afghan women were not able to communicate.”
Dale references another family, “we are fortunate enough to see their journey. For example, a family member from Afghanistan stopped school in the sixth grade and are now starting school at an older age. We had the privilege of seeing these women go through hardship and learn the language and go through college.”
They’re also always looking for ways to “mobilize more support and grow networks to provide access to more job opportunities, transportation, and such,” Dale says. “If we can help, and we see opportunities to help, and we have the capacity to help we will continue to help. Our focus is still Afghanistan as it is the priority because it has been the biggest crisis [GNCH has also matched with families from Ukraine and El Salvador]. We want to engage with more families beyond home furnishing.” GNCH recently established a dedicated project committee focused on exploring tailored ways to connect with families and support the local community. One idea they’re considering is families creating a community vegetable garden cooperative.
More than 100 volunteers have participated in the Good Neighbors of Capitol Hill group since its inception, including friends, neighbors, and congregants from Capitol Hill Presbyterian Church, Capitol Hill United Methodist Church, Christ Church Washington Parish, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the Hill Havurah, Lutheran Church of the Reformation, St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, and St. Peter’s Catholic Church.
Visit this page if you’d like to learn more or to be matched with a recently resettled family through LSSNCA’s Good Neighbor Partners and Champions program.
Serve Boldly 