Friends of Refugees
Friends of Refugees (FOR) was founded in 1995 by Pat Maddox, a resident of Clarkston, full-time volunteer and current active Board member. In 2015, Friends of Refugees’ volunteers gave more than 40,000 hours to serve over 4,000 individuals across 7 program areas. These programs facilitated hundreds of job placements, served over 150 kids in our summer camp and after-school programs, taught hundreds of moms and kids English together, welcomed dozens of babies born to healthy moms in our labor doula program, filled over 90 family kitchen tables with fresh produce from their plots in our community gardens, created thousands of handcrafted items in the Refugee Sewing Society, and helped launch 16 new businesses through the StartME business accelerator.