Transcript

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.

Patrick Poulin—Refugee Conference Testimonial

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Patrick Poulin talks about his experience working with LDS Charities.
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