\u201cImagine going into your home right now and then walking out, and that\u2019s all you can bring with you for the rest of your life,\u201d Israa Gehring, 23, said.<\/p>\n
If anyone understands the realities of life as a refuge, it\u2019s Gehring, who fled Iraq with her family when she was 4 years old.<\/p>\n
Now, she wishes to help other refugees who are coming to the U.S. by organizing a donation drive for household items to help them start their new life. <\/p>\n
During a recent interview at her daycare center on the back of Mendenhall Loop Road, Gehring took out her phone and pulled up an old picture of herself, when she was 5 year old standing next to her 3-year-old brother. They were both wearing pink shirts and shorts, clothing that someone gave them. It didn\u2019t matter that they were \u201cgirl\u2019s clothes,\u201d she said; they were just grateful to have them.<\/p>\n
And when she arrived in the U.S., she remembered receiving a white, plush rabbit with a draw string that was supposed to say something when pulled. She never learned what the rabbit said since it was broken, and yet, it meant a lot to her. She kept the toy until she was 16.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we arrived at the airport from Guam to Texas, there were refugee volunteers who had toys that they were giving out to us,\u201d she said. \u201cNone of them were new, but to me they were new and to my brother, his toy was new. We all got one toy as soon as we arrived, and it was like this feeling I got, it was indescribable. It was kind of like it gave a feeling of hope considering how we had to leave.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gehring\u2019s family left the country of Iraq in the cover of darkness at night. Neither she nor her siblings knew what was going on.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy mom didn\u2019t forewarn us because we were so young, we would go tell our friends,\u201d she explained. \u201cAs soon as we left, our mom she was trying to explain \u2018this is where we\u2019re going\u2019 and \u2018this is why we\u2019re leaving.\u2019 My mom is Sunni and my dad Shiite. My mom is Arab and my dad is Kurd. When we left the country, it was very sudden,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
She continued, \u201cMy mom was trying to explain to us \u2014 I was 4 and my little brother was 2 \u2014 what\u2019s going on and why we\u2019re leaving, what is Arabic, what is Kurdish, and my mother was like, \u2018It\u2019s the language you speak, it\u2019s who you are, it\u2019s what we believe in.\u2019 And I was like, \u2018I don\u2019t understand why we\u2019re leaving.\u2019 And she said, \u2018Well, your dad is one way and I\u2019m another way, and so people don\u2019t like us to be together.\u2019 That was the only reason I ever got.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gehring\u2019s family went to Guam first to be processed as refugees before they could enter the U.S. She can\u2019t remember how long they lived there, but Gehring still remembers the island\u2019s sunrises and sunsets.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce we were processed in Guam, we were given our state to live in, and our state was Texas, the Lone Star State,\u201d she said. \u201cMy mom and dad were super excited because, \u2018Everybody knows about cowboys.\u2019 You don\u2019t know anything about America, but you know Texas because of cowboys and Alaska because of the unknown.\u201d<\/p>\n
They lived in Texas for a short while until her father got a job with Fed-Ex and moved the family to Tennessee. From a volunteer organization, they were given clothes, furniture and appliances.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven though it\u2019s not our home country, we\u2019ve managed to call it home because we didn\u2019t have anywhere else to go and call home,\u201d Gehring said.<\/p>\n
Now, one of her brothers is now an officer in the U.S. Navy. Another is a member of the U.S. Air Force and is trying to become an officer.<\/p>\n
As for Gehring, she came to Alaska when she was 18 and she joined the Alaska Army National Guard. Then, just this year, she won a the battle to open Gehring Nursery School, her own daycare center.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know there is a lot of negative stigma right now about refugees,\u201d Gehring said. \u201cThey\u2019re like, \u2018Oh, they\u2019re just going to come here and start a lot of crime.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Her own story of coming to America, and then going on to serve her country and opening a daycare center demonstrates that\u2019s certainly not the case, she said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis is what refugees can do,\u201d she said. \u201cThis is what can come from one story.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gehring and several Army National Guard members who are helping her with the donation drive will be collecting household items the week of Jan. 5 on Friday, 3-7 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday, from 9 a.m.-4 p.m. at the back of her daycare center, located at 4341 Windfall Avenue.<\/p>\n
The donated items can be anything from couches to clothes, toys to appliances. Any items in decent condition are welcomed, she said, even broken crayons. The only exceptions are items for pets and toiletries.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is nothing that they wouldn\u2019t appreciate,\u201d she said. She added that refugees probably haven\u2019t heard of Keurigs but would be happy with a regular coffee pot; they probably aren\u2019t looking for smart, flat-screen TVs, but an old TV capable of hooking up to a VHS or DVD player would be wonderful.<\/p>\n
All the donated items will be loaded into a conex provided by Lynden Transport which will go to Seattle in mid-January and then to World Relief Seattle in Kent, Washington, for distribution to refugees.<\/p>\n
\u201cI left a country with nothing, and then I came and somebody gave me toy and said, \u2018Welcome,\u2019\u201d Gehring said. \u201cI want to be able to do that for those kids.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2022 Contact Clara Miller at 523-2243 or at clara.miller@juneauempire.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cImagine going into your home right now and then walking out, and that\u2019s all you can bring with you for the rest of your life,\u201d Israa Gehring, 23, said. If anyone understands the realities of life as a refuge, it\u2019s Gehring, who fled Iraq with her family when she was 4 years old. Now, she […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":429,"featured_media":9552,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[75],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-9551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/429"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9551\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9551"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=9551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}