Community Support Team Spotlight: Butler-Tarkington
12/6/23
Meet the Butler-Tarkington Community Support Team! They were a team of friends who live in the Butler-Tarkington neighborhood. They were matched with a family from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Our Community Support Teams volunteer for a 3-to-6-month period. After being matched with a client family, they help Exodus in numerous ways to welcome the family to Indiana and support their life ahead. They were led by Amy L. and Amy N., who spoke with us about what their volunteer experience was like.
Both Amy L. and Amy N. have lived in Indianapolis for a while, hold an appreciation for different cultures, and enjoy celebrating the diversity here in Indiana. Their group of friends had been interested in volunteering with Exodus for a while, but life was busy with kids, work, and everything else. When one friend in the group started as an individual volunteer at Exodus, they decided it was time for them to jump in as a group and become a Community Support Team.
Before being matched with a client family, a Team goes through a few trainings with Exodus to be better prepared for volunteering with refugee families. They found the training to be really useful since “it is hard to prepare for something you haven’t done yet,” and the group was grateful for the support Exodus provided them during their volunteer experience.
One thing they learned was that the language and cultural barrier was a little trickier than they had anticipated. There were some hiccups in the beginning, but in the end, it was running much more smoothly!
Something special the team remembers about their time volunteering was watching how their kids and the kids in the family jumped into running around and playing with each other, finding ways to communicate despite the language barrier.
“It was nice to expose our families to a different culture and show them that other families speak different languages. It isn’t just English [that’s spoken] in the world and if you cannot travel, you can have that experience in Indy by volunteering with Exodus.”
Amy L. shared that one of her favorite memories was when she cooked dinner for the family. She made some chicken and roasted vegetables, as a way to share a simple, but traditional dinner an American family normally eats. After everyone finished eating, one of the kids who speaks some English thanked her for the dinner but requested that next time could she just bring pizza, the kids new favorite food.
Amy N. shared that on one of her last visits with the family, she was impressed she did not have to use an interpreter at all. She brought over some pizza, and everyone hopped up on the couch with Mom to go over some English flashcards they had. There was a lot of excitement, and they were happy to show off how much they had learned.
Both found their volunteer experience to be rewarding, and their advice to anyone thinking about starting a Community Support Team is to just go for it. “It can be helpful to have a group of people with differing schedules to balance the responsibility,” so tracking the team’s availability is key.
Thank you to the Butler-Tarkington team for all their work and dedication in supporting our clients and being a part of welcoming them to the community. We are grateful for their time and energy!
If you are interested in forming a Community Support Team, please feel free to reach out to Kris George, kgeorge@exodusrefugee.org
