Amidst the current political climate, the arrival of refugees in Ohio and the rise of islamophobia, a graduate student at the University, Felix Reyes, is helping refugee families in the Ohio area.
“As a musician, I was taught that sometimes you must take a step back and realize that sometimes it can be much easier to help people by not limiting yourself to doing one thing, but expand your work and go out into the community to help those in need,” Reyes said.
As a librarian and archivist for the non-profit organization So Percussion, Reyes has worked to build and better community interaction with musicians and community members. Based in Brooklyn, So Percussion puts together a food packaging event to help the community and bring music and inspiration to the people.
“This is something that I have been doing for the past two years and it was important to me that I bring this event to BG,” Reyes said.
The community is helping the increasing community in Ohio by providing reassurance and safety.
“Now that refugee families are coming to try and make a home in Ohio, I think it is important that we try to help them feel safe and provide help,” community member Khannah Stanback said.
In collaboration with the Student Percussion Organization and The Outreach Program, Reyes is committed to seeing that vision come true.
The Outreach Program is a platform that organizes food packaging events around the country. With more than 300 million meals packaged to date, the organization’s mission is to provide food, safe water, education and medical care to those in need at home and abroad. In order to have the packaging event, Reyes must raise a certain amount of money.
“The goal is to donate 25,000 meals, so that means we need to raise $6,250 to make this a success. We have raised a little over half of our goal already,” Reyes said.
With the help of the Student Percussion Organization (SPA), Reyes began putting the food packaging event together.
“SPA has been inactive as a student organization for the past two years and now we have reactivated the organization and wanted to come up with ideas to get involve with community service,” Reyes said. “I pitched the idea to the org and they were on board with making this event happen.”
Reyes knew that he wanted to donate the package meals to refugee communities, so he contacted Us Together in Toledo, a Refugee Resettlement Agency and an affiliate of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. Us Together has two more locations in Ohio: Cleveland and Columbus.
Reyes began discussing the layout of the event with Charles Baker, the community outreach chair and case worker at Us Together Toledo.
“It has been great working with someone as enthusiastic and dedicated as Felix. From day one he had a plan for coordinating this project and maximizing its impact. His prior experience with food drives through The Outreach Program has been very valuable as well,” Baker said.
The packaged food will be donated to all three of the Us Together agencies and the Islamic Center of Toledo.
“We will be dividing the food between all three of the US Together offices in Ohio: Toledo, Cleveland and Columbus, reaching around 150 families. The food will be enough to feed each family for a couple weeks,” Baker said.
There are two ways to donate to the packaging event. To donate online, go to the Outreach program website and click donate now. The event number is 92. Mail checks are also accepted. Reyes and SPA will also be accepting donations and packaging food on Nov. 20 in the College of Musical Arts.
