A Place to Call Home for an Afghan Refugee Family

Kim and I along with our new Afghan family want to thank everyone who has donated clothes, gift cards, toys, etc thus far. This has truly been been a lifesaver. Many of you continue to ask what the family needs and how you can help. Since arriving to our home on September 4th we've worked non stop to try and determine the best course of action to take, and in what order that needs to be taken.

Until the family is resettled into their own home, they will be unable to enroll their children into school. In addition, getting employment in Habib's career field certainly won't happen overnight as we aim to get him back into the public sector, working in a position of his caliber, where he is most qualified to be. Having said that, this is what we have chosen to do in order to help them transition into the next leg of their journey...

We are currently calling around to different apartment and home rentals in the Sacramento area. If permitted by the landlord, we would like to put the lease in our name and pay the lease in full and up front. This will allow them to resettle into a more permanent residence where they can begin to make a life here. It will allow them to enroll their children into school. And lastly it will free them up of these burdens to focus only on employment.

This gofundme page is being created to help offset these costs. Most 2 bedroom rentals in Sacramento cost a minimum of $1600-$1700 per month, with a minimum 6 month lease, equating to roughly $10,000. Whatever we don't raise I will gift to the family. Should we raise funds over and above the $10,000, we will gift that money to the family on your behalf to help them purchase furniture and housewares.

Thank you in advance & God Bless,

Mark & Kimberly Daya

To get more context of the situation, here is the post copied from Facebook about how this all got started:

Kim and I are in contact with a refugee family from Afghanistan who needs our help. This couple and their young children (7, 4, 15 mos) have been through hell and, against all odds, were able to make onto a C17 after 6 days of dodging the Taliban and being turned away at the Kabul airport. They flew from Kabul to Qatar to Germany to D.C. and arrived in Sacramento at 1:00 a.m. this morning.

I was chatting with a past client of mine last night (a former interpreter for the US army in Afghanistan) about ways to help. He put me in contact with someone at the International Rescue Committee who let me know of this family's plight. We couldn't help but think of the retired veterans who got together for Operation Pineapple Express and rescued hundreds of allies and Americans. These Afghani allies put everything on the line by working with the US military. Kim and I feel we are being called to continue the mission in some small way.

They are currently in a hotel in Union City but need help finding a place to live. In order to find permanent residence, they will need to find sustainable employment. We are still gathering more information on their background to share but I can tell you they both speak English and are highly educated - wife has a degree in finance and he has 3 masters degrees: Agricultural Economics, Management of Development, International Relations. Both have tremendous international experience and have been to over 30 countries on business in the public sector including working for USAID and WTO.

This is where you can help. Between Kim and I, we have a plethora of connections in property management, transportation, and employment in the public and private sectors. If you have a resource you can share, please DM me or leave a comment. If you don't, please share this post. We will continue to share details as they unfold.