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Welcoming neighbors to St. Louis
18 | OUR TOWN | MARCH 2020 Downtown has its annual Taste of St. Louis event but Pallottine Renewal Center in North County is set to host a more intimate cultural event that will provide a dinner of Syrian cuisine and education for a good cause.
Welcome Neighbor STL’s traveling Supper Club dinner, which will benefit the refugee wom en who prepare the dinner, will take place Feb. 29 from 6 – 8 p.m. at 15270 Old Halls Ferry Road, in Florissant. Tickets can be purchased on line at https://welcomeneighborstl.com/events. Welcome Neighbor STL functions as a commu nity group that supports immigrants and refugees as they begin a new life in St. Louis. According to the founder of Welcome Neighbor STL, Jessica Bueler, the organization closed out 2019 having completed its 99th Supper Club event with proceeds to date for refugees totaling $152,324. At the close of 2019, the dinners resulted in service to 5,349 attendees.
Pallottine Renewal Center approached Bueler about hosting one of its dinner events after Mar cia Wilderman, Retreat and Event Coordinator for Pallottine attended one of the Supper Club dinners.
“She really liked the format of how we had an amazing spread of Arabic cuisine,” stated Bueler. “After everyone gets their food and (is seated), we start our program. We have a Q and A session where people can ask questions of the refugees that they may be wondering about or may not know. We see so much misinformation in the media and on social media. This is a way for people to break down those bearers and get to know someone that is different from themselves. So, when I met with Marcia and took a tour of (Pallottine) and we looked at the different spaces, we thought this would be the perfect thing to do (at Pallottine). We have not done any event in North County. (Most) of our events have been in St. Louis City or close to the dividing line of St. Louis City and St. Louis County. Most of (the hosting of) our events have been (due to) word of mouth. So, when I talked to Marcia, she said she would really like to bring this to North County. I told her that was something I’d been thinking about too, but we hadn’t been invited.”
Based on the refugee women that Welcome Neighbor STL supports, “would-be hosts” have a variety of menu options for planning the type of Supper Club dinner they would like to have. Some of the menus are Afghanistan, African, Dubai and Lebanese. There is also an interna tional offering.
For dinners where there is no onsite kitchen, food is prepared at the location of one of Welcome Neighbor’s partners (i.e., church, etc.). Bueler shared that if their grant application with the Spirt of St. Louis is approved, they will be able to use a new kitchen space at STL FoodWorks downtown at 408 North Sarah.
According to Bueler, Welcome Neighbor utilizes Restaurant Depot for purchase of its Supper Club meal needs at a reduced cost and tax-free due to their nonprofit status. To prepare for a supper event, Welcome Neighbor assesses its ticket sells two days prior to the event and uses incoming funds to purchase what is needed. The refugee cook(s) is included as part of the shopping process.
The proceeds are divided equally be tween cooks when there is more than one cook for a dinner event. Bueler fur ther explained that the women are fully involved in the process in deciding who prepares what dishes to ensure fairness in the preparation times as well as ensure their desires are not lost in the process.
“For the first three years of the program 100 percent of the proceeds went to the refugee cooks. Just beginning now in this year 2020, 90 percent of the proceeds will go to the cooks. We wanted to keep it at 100 percent but as the organization is growing, we have larger expenses. Now we have office space and account ing (needs). We have almost 50 refugee cooks that have passed the (SERV Safe) Food Handler’s class. So, to be able to keep all of that accounting straight we have to make sure we have enough money in our budget to take care of those items.”
Bueler also shared that some of the women they assist use their food preparation credentials to work in restaurants instead of participating in the Supper Club program.
Though the organization began in No vember 2016 it didn’t receive its 501c3 status until May 1, 2019 in partnership with START, Inc. (St. Louis Teens Aid Refu gees Today). START, Inc. was founded by two St Louis teens, Adam Saleh and Luke Braby, to benefit refugees in the St Louis area.
“As we were talking about becoming a
nonprofit,” stated Bueler, “we had been working closely with this group from Priory High School. Instead of becoming two separate nonprofits we (decided to) combine our resources and became a nonprofit together. So, Welcome Neighbor STL is a program under the START nonprofit umbrella.”
Bueler states that she started the ini tiative after she read about four refugee boys beaten outside their home in the newspaper who had come to St. Louis from Syria. Bueler utilized social media to connect members of the community in the area where the Syrian family lived to see what could be done to assist the fam ily. Her request resulted in the community donating clothing, shoes and personal care items.
Bueler shared that Welcome Neighbor has been funded by all individual dona tions with as little as $1 to as much as $5,000.
Bueler also shared that the organization’s more than 450 volunteers have helped make the initiatives sustainable.
“When a refugee family reaches out to us (for assistance) we try to find people who live close to them in their community to help create a support system for that family,” stated Bueler. “If we had a family where the children needed help with tutoring, we would try to maybe match them with someone who was a retired teacher living in the area. If we had a parent who’s disabled, we would try to pair them with a (group) where they go out together – to parks, picnics, etc. The goal is to create a support system for the family in whatever way that works best for them. We find it’s important to partner several American families with one refu gee family because we don’t want it to be overwhelming for the American family. We try to do it as a group so we can help together.”
Bueler shared that Welcome Neighbor’s volunteers also serve other needs as they arise, including the organization’s newest quest to use the community center at its office location connected to St.
John’s Episcopal Church on 3672 Arse nal St, as a warming shelter on nights when temperatures are below 20 degrees. The office administrative needs are provided by volunteers who serve various areas not limited to writing thank you cards to financial contributors, organization of the office, and phone calls that require bilingual skills. Most recently these services have been provided by women from Morocco, Egypt, and Syria.
In addition to helping women earn money as food preparers, Welcome Neighbor STL in partnership with START, Inc. also provides citizenship classes at its community center and driving lessons are provided for the women who have never learned to drive a car.
“We want to help women create their own independence,” stated Bueler.
To learn more about Welcome Neigh bor STL, its Supper Club and how to donate toward any of its initiatives visit https://welcomeneighborstl.com.
